CASE-IPY : First week at Concordia

Apologies for the lateness of this post. Last night I was too tired to do much more than curl up and go to sleep. Looking over what we have done this past week, it is hardly surprising.

Apart from fixing the permanent station (see previous post), we have completed the setup of the first temporary CASE-IPY station and are now ready for a full-scale test deployment tomorrow (Monday).

Each station is physically composed of three large wooden boxes, containing respectively a seismometer, the acquisition electronics and a battery pack, a 7m mast, a radio antenna and three solar panels. All the boxes are conditioned with multiple layers of insulation to keep their contents as warm as possible. The radio antenna and the three solar panels are attached to the mast.

This past week we have prepared each of these elements so as to have as little fiddling with electrical connections as screws in the field as possible. The few connections that remain to be wired will not be a problem, especially after the experience of working at -59C in the vault earlier this week.

What you see above is the seismometer we will be using tomorrow. We have kept it under snow for the past few days, to get it used to the cold. Yesterday we took it out of its box for the first time and prepared it for use.