Tag: wireless communication

28 December 2006

I-TASC expedition 2006/2007

Updates coming, sorry for delays, been a bit busy here but we will ensure we update every day now, unless it’s absolutely not possible.

Today we travelled to Lorenzo Piggen, a small Nunatak (Inuit for ‘island’) about 7 km from the base. This is the proposed site of the AWS (Automatic Weather Station). We travelled out there by Skidoo – I-TASC has been given 2 skidoos to use at our leisure.

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It was an interesting site and tomorrow we will try a data test between the base and the site. It’s not so far away, so there are no problems anticipated.

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What we have to do is set up a radio modem at the base, and then another radio modem and laptop will go out to the site. Then we will establish communication between the two modems. Essentially, this means we have a ‘wireless’ data connection (point-to-point) between the site and the base. If I connect the modem at the base to the internet then out at Lorenzo they could check their email (for example); this is not the intended purpose of the equipment but it’s an interesting exercise anyway.

I would like to try this setup with sending live audio between the two points, and also to try some internet telephony (something like Skype, but I would try a software called Asterisk and some ‘software phones’) and IRC (chat) communication. I will leave this for now and just do a basic test but in the next few days, I will try something a little more sophisticated.

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In the meantime, life at the base is establishing a rhythm. We get up every day at 0630 and then do ‘skivvies’ which are the cleaning duties for the base. After that, we get to work (skivvies take about an hour). Then we work until 1300, have lunch, work again and have dinner at 1900. Then we are usually working again until late or we go to the sauna and relax. Sleep comes at about midnight. So it’s a long day. Just when you think you are feeling tired you look out the window and the sun fools you into feeling it is the middle of the afternoon and refuses to let you sleep.

I think many people are a little lost for things to do at the end of the day. Of course, it is beautiful here and a walk outside is a good cure for boredom but at the end of the day most people are very tired and the thought of spending 20 minutes wrapping up in the protective clothing needed to go outside is not as appetising as you might think. Additionally, even though we are on the continent with the least population density, there is no private space which is something of an irony. There is just no way of getting away from people: if you go outside then you must go in pairs for safety’s sake, and inside there is nowhere that doesn’t have people. I am a bit saturated with people at the moment so I might sneak away to the TV lounge when most are asleep and get some nobody time.

27 December 2006

I-TASC expedition 2006/2007

More work on the equipment today. There is a meeting later in the afternoon about the requirements of the FM station. In the meantime, we are plugging in the HF modems to the laptops to see how the communication works. We didn’t get this far last night as we had issues with the Automatic Weather Station software (it’s not compatible with the operating system we are using in the mini PC). The manual was wrong for the modems but we managed to sort out the connectivity. Seems like it is a nice fluent system. We tested connecting a laptop to a High Frequency Radio modem and then connecting another modem to the network, and that works very well. My cable-making skills are not very good but I managed to make a working crossover cable (similar to an ethernet cable but with a different wiring) for the laptop-to-modem connection. After that, the system worked well. For now, this means what we have to do now is to connect one modem to the Automatic Weather Station (AWS) and another to a computer at SANAE. Then we can relay data from the AWS to SANAE via radio, which in turn means the AWS can be deployed remotely.

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So everyone is falling into their roles nicely. I am doing the FM station and helping with the tech for the AWS etc; First is doing a lot of work on the PCs we need for both the AWS and the FM station; Amanda is mainly doing video documentation but also was extremely useful with the AWS because she was the only one that read the manual; and Tom is acting as liaison between SANAE and us, and he is also the person responsible for being eternally optimistic regarding the tech (while First and I have to try and implement his optimistic suggestions – actually it’s good having someone optimistic about technology because over the last years I have become a little cynical about it, so his optimism will help push me on.

In the meantime, the room where we sleep is turning into a micro family. Zama and Remmy are really funny, and it’s good to hang out and talk bullshit at the end of the day. It doesn’t always work because the end of the day is quite hard to determine, it being sunshine 24/7. Despite the permanent sunshine, there is actually a definite evening light. The sun gets lower and you can see the longer shadows on the ice, which kind of gives it the appearance of the moon. Below is a photo taken just as this effect is starting, looking through the window of our room. I will try and take a picture showing this effect more clearly. The antenna you see in the photo is used for measuring the distance and shape of the ionosphere.

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