Arrived at the station:
So we finally arrived at the Biological Station on Tuesday afternoon, tired but happy. It turned out that against latest information we got in Linz about one week before we departed we are not alone here!!! No there are at least 6 researchers of very different fields here so plenty chances for exchange, talk and inspiration and of course some help. It is a really great place here and we met an unbelievable nice and friendly welcome. This we think is the spirit of the station but of course the climate strongly influenced by Erich Berger the head of the Ars Bioarctica program too. Everyone is helpfull and it's so easy to get what needed and moreover there is great openness.
Day No° 1 - 20/11/2013
After some prowling around in the station we detected all areas in the station that we will need to use for both, of course for our work on the detail-projects as well as for our bodily and overall wellbeeing. So we started on Wednesday to move our stuff and tools to Lab No° 137 and unpacked all. Further we did some excursion to the area around the Station to find usefull spots for natural radio detection and some environmental measurements. So we got aware of the sometimes massive sounds the thin, new not yet stable ice surface emits, great the Lake talks!
Day No° 2 - 21/11/2013
After moving into the lab, the main goal for the data_opera project was to mount the analog synthesizer but first several hours of unpacking of the modules testing functionality and mounting the modules in operational groups into the rack which had to be reconfigured too, as everything was dissasembled for the transport into smalles possible fragments. Unfortunately one of the most important modules, a dual sample and hold does not work anymore, it ssems one of the chips does not work anymore but besides that everything isfunctioning nice.
Assembling the synth
First inspection of access into lab from outside to get outside air into the lab look good. Easy to find stuff to adapt the hairdryer= airflow-generator so this looks good.
Acces fom lab to environment
Day No 3 22/11/2013
This we decided is the perfect day to go onto Mt Saana to find possible locations for VLF recording in the shadow of Mt Saana to find spots free of radio and and other electromagnetic pollution and as well to visit the mountain top to get an overview of the landscape surrounding Kilpisjärvi.
Day No 4 23/11/2013
First setback is, that the hairdryer gets too hot and stops working, restarts after a while and so on. Solution maybe is bypassing detaching the heating system as it can not shut off.
This seemed working good as the fan now even went faster what was even appreciated. But after a whil a smoky smell and after a closer look some blue sparks from the motor did not propose this will work this way. After a second try with the low fan speed the engine was working very weak so stop of this and test to run the fan dirctly from a wall-wart 12V powersupply did not meet the needs concweerning airflow strenght.
So next step thinking and start to build a prototype for the sensor station which will once located in the box detect dust.
Mounting it was easy to find transparent light housings for the sensor and to attach 12V server cooling radial fans for filtered in and out flow of the outside air. This works quite good, fans work good even with the filters attached. Communication with arduino and sensor data logging is no problem.