Well, I survived the halloween party. I am still kind of thinking there is a diner around here to have breakfast at midnight....actually there is is.. It is called Midrats. This shall be my first experience with Midrats (midnight rations). It was fun.
Dirty Jobs for science
I went up to "T" Site today. "T" Site stands for "T" Site of all things. It is a restricted area. There is quite a bit of alphabet soup around here. I had to escort the AFRTS folks and fix a problem with one of the field party repeater audio lines. We had to do a little 4-wheeling through some snow to get up there. I drive very cautiously in these area (actually all areas). There are switch backs going up the hills and of course they are covered with ice, no guardrails and it is a quick trip down to the sea ice if you slide off the road. My boss is absolutely fearless I think. My driving did not phase him at all. I had some fun with some 2.4 GHz equipment today at work.
I have my sea ice training Monday it appears. I am looking forward to it.
I am settling in and finding the natural time efficiencies in getting things done at work and outside of work. Tommorow is Sunday, the day off. I am planning on going to the library and exercising.
The truck is the shop's truck. That is the one I get to drive. The other pic is near Bldg 70 (one of the small shelters) up at T-site of a couple of the many towers we use. Most of towers are old HF towers that are not used anymore.
Today was kind of slow. I am getting to see again what happens to me and the organization in a new job situation. I am paying super close attention this time. Some things just happen every time. It is just so predictable. Yet there seems no changing it.
I volunteered to be a peer counselor here at McMurdo. The function is an area of overlap with the miltary although we report to absolutely no one. I am available for private confidential discussions with others as their choice. This is part of a bunch of techniques used to help folks with post traumaic stress syndrome. Getting the horror of something into the rational part of the brain shortly after what we call an "incident" is very important for mental health. I am getting training in this area. It overlaps with our mass casualty training. Saturday night is the big Halloween party which makes the real begining of the Summer here. I am not much one for halloween parties, but I will check it out.
Here is a picture of the outside of my shop. The other pic is a tomato. It is an emergency shelter used on the sea ice. "Mac Ops, Mac Ops... we have reached the tomato 4 souls inside, over. "
Sorry no pic this time. This walk up computer's case was designed for StYle to the point that it won't allow me to fully engage my thumbdrive whose case was designed for StYle.
It was a calm day in the shop. Fixed a bunch o' stuff. It is a harsh continent ya know. That saying is pretty much a cliche' down here. No matter what happens, food complaints, vehicle problems, radio problems. It doesn't matter. The standard answer is that "It is a harsh Continent". I think I even saw a tee shirt that said that. I may be out in the fild tomorrow. My boss said a bunch of us are headed out, some by helo, some by Pisten Bully. My trip to Taylor Dome probably won't happen until the 4th.
I double checked my compass this morning. Yup. I am too close to the magnetic soth pole. One end of needle is pulled down to the point the needle won't spin. I am taking a high quality compass. What they did in the old days was to reweight the needle to compensate.
My drain swirl observations are consistent. No swirl. I thought maybe the other day I saw a little counter clockwise swirl but....
One of the things that makes it harsh hear is that the atmosphere is much thinner at the poles because of the spinning of the earth. The solid part of the earth is effected by this effect creating not a sphere but a ovate spheroid. The diameter is thinner on a polar axis rather than an equatorial axis. The atmosphere is even more affected so even at McMurdo appears to be at sea level we have a much thinner atmosphere than other coastal towns. In other words, the brometric pressure is always lower.
It turns out I don't have to go out to Taylor Dome for the put-in. I will be on a follow-on flight in an LC-130 (Herc). I don't know the day yet because I have not had my gear manifested yet. The tractors have been out there at Taylor Dome unvisited for the last two years. This is the begining of ITASE phase 2. The tractors similar to the ones pictured but much larger pull sleds with a mechanical shop, berthing, kitchen and the other absolute essentials. We have to get all the equipment ready for another traverse to for the rest of the season. They will be drilling ice and obtaining Ice core samples in key loacations that can provide valuable historical climate data for 100s of thousands of years. I have some radios to install. I am sure after two Antarctic winters there will be some other stuff to repair. My boss said that he noticed my ability to fix things so that is why I got the gig. There may be a lot of other stuff to fix besides radios. You do what you need to do in these camps.
I have to get up at about 3:45 AM so I can participate in a teleconference for 11:00 AM Eastern Time (Wednesday).
Today I was in the shop. I fixed a radio or two and we spent quite a bit of time screwing around with this huge (geographically) wireless network we are building. One of the problems we have is that we have a pretty mixed bag of various vintages of equipment. Some of the stuff is ancient in terms of wireless LANs. Some is new. The feature sets vary so much it is important not to mix and match in each subnet. Even then functions across the net can cause issues.
I got word today that I am headed out to the ITASE traverse start site at Taylor dome, I believe for the put-in. What that means is I fly out in a twin otter skiplane with the folks who put up the tents and generally "make camp". There will be six of us. We will have to do a lot of hand digging and such. I understand to get one of the Challengers out of the snow it will be a manual process and then we can use that one to get the second one unburied. I have to get the radios working and install a couple more. We will probably have to rely on HF and satelite phone (if available). I don't think I can make the path on VHF. I am not sure. I have a meeting tomorrow to discuss this. I bet they are going to want Internet as well!
The important thing is that this time or another time I will be out in the field at the whim of weather and equipment. I may not post for a day or two or three. Don't panic. It just means I have to go primitive for a bit. I will post when I am in town.
These photos are from my helo ride yesterday. I have hundreds more just from that short trip. That is a great arial shot of McMurdo. Mt Erebus is in the background. Erebus is an active volcano. There have still been no trips to Pole, still too cold. I bet a few of these people would like to get home after being totally isolated since February.
I had high altitude training and I flew out to Lake Bonney to get some radios working. The high altitude training was informative and the theme was again similar to extreme adventuring, stay hydrated, know your limits, look for and be aware of the early signs of danger. The class of course had a lot more content than that but that was the general theme. The trip out to Lake Bonney in the Bell 212 takes about 50 minutes each way although we stopped for fuel at a fuel cache on the way back. Two of us went to the Lake Bonney camp and the other two got dropped off on top of Mt. 1882 to get the repeater going. Using HTs on simplex we got the systems running but we still have a bit of a problem with the Internet link.
It is starting to sink in that I am in Antarctica. I took hundreds of photos today and a whole bunch of cool short videos. Lake Bonney is a very interesting lake for science purposes. There are almost no living things in it and the ones that are living are primordial. There are extremely strict rules of conduct in the area (the Dry Valleys). All pee and human excrement gets retrogaded. You have to carry a pee bottle and use it if you need to to ensure the area stays as pritine as possible. It was definately quite a treat to be there. I had heard that the dry valleys are like the surface of mars or another planet. Now that I have been there I suppose it might be. The ground is a course sand/gravel that gives freely when you walk. It does not pack. The rocks are certainly interesting as well. With all my ECW on and my bunny boots you can't help but feel like an Astronaut. This is a geologist's dream. In fact I saw some of my Geologist friends off at the helo pad as they were off to another part of the dry valleys until December 14th. It will be neat to catch up with them when they get back into town.
Other Science.
Although it is not what I expected the basins and toilets seem to not swirl at all. The water just runs down at the angle that gravity takes it. This needs more study to be sure. I will have an update in a few weeks.
Spit at 25 below does not freeze before it hits the ground. It does freeze shortly after that. The really cold temperatures of the pole and polar plateau get cold enough (I hear) to get a cracking noise when you spit. Those polies are crazy. Folks I eat with here live in tents at these temperatures for months down here. They are very hearty indeed.
The sun being up 24 hours is strange and I don't think anyone can really get totally used to it. It really does stay light 24 hour a day this time of year. There is no twilight. Sometimes you get tricked by thinking there is twilight when the sun goes behind a cloud. It is 9:30 PM right now and it is just as bright as it was when I got up at 5:00 this morning. I have heavy blinds over the windows to help with the human/mental concerns.
I lived thru a Sunday. I spent a lot of time in the library. We watched the debut of "Emperors of the Ice" last night as part the science lecture. The producers/lecturers gave a talk as well. The documentary will be seen this coming year in the US. It is a National Geographic Special. It is pretty interesting to see a film like this one. It is all staged around McMurdo. To my eyes it isn't that exotic anymore. Don't get me wrong. I find it exciting and all that. However, it is like seeing a documentary about your family Thanksgiving day dinner. It is familiar.
I have a very busy day today. I actually got quadruple booked today with work and training. That has to get worked out this morning.
Here's me in the ham shack. I have a bit of work to do for the shack but we are going to be using 14.243 MHz USB. I will be using the station callsign KC4USV. Schedules are forthcoming.
