29 December
by Amanda Rodrigues AlvesI never expected to lose weight here, I don't know if I have, but certainly I've been going to bed very tired everyday from the all physical activity.
Today we're up again at 6:30 and from breakfast went straight to do the cleaning duties. Again I cleaned the toilet, (if I have to clean the toilet every second day how is happening so far, I'll pay for all my sins, as we say in Brazil) and right after that we had to pack and get ready to go back Lorentzenpiggen.
Today we had to go there again to test if our antenna would work, in other words, if it would transmit information from the site (Lorentzenpiggen) of the unit we want to install at the SANAE Base. We ran some tests last night from outside the base and it all worked so the probabilities of working out there today were good.
As we expected the antenna worked really well and transmitted the information quite fast.
Adam stayed behind at the base in order to transmit the information so it was only Thomas, myself and First and four more people that didn't go with us yesterday to visit the site. They went only for the ride. I got some good shots of the whole process for the film and that made me quite happy because finally the sound was good and we didn't have to run around and could do everything calmly.
This time we only had the 2 skidoos we're assign and I wanted to drive one because yesterday I really had a terrible time on the passenger sledge. Basically I had a little panic attack, just because I was riding in the front of the sledge, the driver was going really fast and the snow here is quite hard and bumpy so I was bumping and shaking a lot, so much I thought I was going to fall out of the sledge. The driver wasn't looking back at us so I couldn't tell him to slow down and this lack of control stressed me a lot and I thought I shouldn't be here (in Antarctica) at all because I'm not so brave anymore and I thought I would ruin the whole experience for everybody because I wouldn't be able to go out there again. But as soon as I went to sit at the back of the sledge and the driver slowed down the whole experience was much more pleasant and I could actually enjoy the mountains around us. I drove on the way back though.
So this morning I drove the skidoo again to the site but this time pulling the cargo sledge with 2 people on a mattress. I went really slow because I didn't want them to have the same experience as I had yesterday. The day was beautiful again, blue skies and not a drop of wind so it was warm, only minus 2 degrees C. After we did our tests and took enough pictures of everything, Struan, (who is a guy that has been here already 6 times, one over winter) wanted to take us to a wind scoop at the back of where we were, but before that he discovered a crack right in the middle of the slope between the peak of the Lorentzenpiggen and the site we choose for our unit. He had a probe with him that we used to check the site of our unit and with that he open up the crack. It's quite amazing how it was hidden in the snow, a minute before that one of the expedition coordinators drove his skidoo right across it (apparently that is quite safe and we do it all the time).
We went to the wind scoop which was about 2 km away, right at the back of the peak, it was much smaller than the one we went to on Christmas day but to go into this one we needed a rope. A little adventure and we were all trusting Struan on his experience, I didn't walk down like some of us did but hold the rope and slided down on my bottom. Everyone else went down except Thomas who has vertigo and stayed on top filming. But once down I felt bad I left him alone up there and started to wonder how I would get up. The blue ice at the bottom of this wind scoop was quite murky and bumpy so it was difficult to walk on it, while the others were exploring around I just stayed laying in the sun.
To go back up we put 2 clamps on the rope and basically had to walk up perpendicular to the slope using the clamps to pull ourselves up. I'm not so strong but the clamps really help you to go up, the main problem was to get a grip with my boots. Because I couldn't do that Struan went behind me and gave support to one of my feet so then I could go up. It was a huge exercise, I was exhausted, but happy I made it. I wasn't the worst case though, the priest of the expedition was with us and he had to be pulled up out of the scoop by all of us. But we all had a good time.
We got back at 3pm very hungry and after eating all we could do was to take a nap. I woke up with the announcement of dinner.
Right now Adam is on the roof installing the antenna for the radio station and Thomas is trying to get the cable through the wall to our working room. Once that is done I think we don't have to do much more work to get it going, it will be fun to have a radio station here for everyone on the base and also to the truck drivers that drive overnight to the boat and back.
29 December, 2006
by Adam HydeToday Amanda, Tom and First Born went to the proposed site for the Automatic Weather Station. We could make a connection easily via the radio modems we had. It was a simple test, from the site on Lorenzo Piggen some 7km away they plugged in a laptop to the radio modem. The modem at the site seamlessly connected to the modem here, once the link was established Tom and First Born browsed (using a regular web browser) to a webserver running on my laptop at the base (connected to the other radio modem) and they could see the files I put there for the test. Simple. I could also monitor the data traffic through a program called 'EtherApe' and this told me that there was no data errors or loss of data over the link.
Received Packet Statistics Transmitted Packet Statistics Receive bytes: 1236797 Transmit bytes: 913038 Receive packets: 4865 Transmit packets: 5396 Receive errors: 0 Transmit errors: 0 Drop packets: 0 Drop packets: 0Great, so now we know two laptops can connect via the modems over the distance between SANAE and the site of the AWS, we must now work on getting the modems working with the AWS. We are not sure this can actually work, but if the hardware will actually allow it then it should be easy to set up. Essentially what we are doing is sending data between two points using the modems but communicating not through the ethernet connectors but through a serial connection (its a different kind of hardware and data protocol).
Today I also went to the top of SANAE (on the roof) to trace the cable we will use for the FM transmitter. There are two cables which aren't being used. I traced these with a circuit connector and it seems the longest cable goes right to the point where we need to mount the antenna and then right back into the base with good length so it will reach to the lab. That is good news. I think all I have to do now is to put the right connectors on and plug it all in. If only technology was that simple (I am sure I will come across problems I hadn't thought of yet).
In the meantime life in the outside world continues. My good friend Luka Princic is on holiday for a few days in Amsterdam where I would be if I wasn't here. Damn! Ah well, I might see him in New Zealand in a few months. And here life moves to its odd insular beat - for example I-TASC met to work out a schedule for working. The schedule calculations seemed to get algorithmic so I said they can do what they like but I would just get up, work, and stop when I couldn't work anymore. I don't know, it seems to make sense to me...
Anyways, time for lunch.
...so now its midnight(ish)...the day started productively then went to the pack. The team shot off to check stuff out and there was not much productive I could do here at the stage we are at without them so after a good deal of procrastination I decided to take a break. I went upstairs and, hello, there was someone sleeping in my bed...and it wasn't me....i was a bit miffed at first but then I (eventually) woke him up and it seems he is one of the over winter team and couldn't sleep because in his room ppl are talking. No worries, the over winter team own this place (its been their home for a long time) so I apologised and went to throw some darts.
After the team returned and after dinner I got the connectors I needed from Franz (pretty much the boss). I had tested the cable before and I knew all I needed to do was plug in the antenna and transmitter (using the connectors)...its probably the fastest install I have had for a radio station. The only tricky bit was that we were on the roof and it was kind of cold, and putting on the antenna bolts when you cant feel your hands (actually they hurt quite a bit from the wind) isn't so easy. Thankfully Tom was there to share my suffering and help squeeze in the tricky little bolts.
So now stage one of the r a d i o q u a l i a (subset I-TASC) Polar Radio is complete. The transmitter is all fired up and transmitting as I write. Already quite a few of the over winter crew have come down to check it out and we hope to broadcast tonight so the drivers that leave tonight for the boat (to pick up more gear) can listen for a distance as they disappear slowly into the sunlit night. Chris Munro, if you are listening, I'm playing a song for you.
