5 January 2007
by Thomas MulcaireSANAE Base, 71 deg 40' 25.66940 S 02 deg 50' 30.411805 W, 862.38m above sea level
I didn't set the alarm clock last night thinking I would grab some extra sleep on my off day from doing the 7am skivvies but the radio room woke me up at 07h30 anyway:
Charlie One has taken off. I repeat Charlie One has taken off. ETA at SANAE 08h30.
The helicopters were flying again. I didn't need to get out of bed to know that it was a beach day outside. No wind, perfect visibility. I washed my face and armpits (the showers are still switched off) and headed down to our office. I put my head in at the weather office and asked Dries (our weatherman) what the temperature was and to get an idea of the forecast for the next few days. It was still -3 deg C outside but Dries told me he expected the air temp to hit positive (which is a rare event here) around midday so I said I'd come by later to see history made. He also said that a new storm could hit us on Sunday. I had a bit of work still to do on our IEE (Initial Environmental Evaluation) before the environmental officer arrives next week but I decided to finish some of the work that we needed to do outside whilst the weather is holding.
I asked Amanda to help me install the 900MHz omni-directional antenna for our packet radio modems. We have yagi directional antennas for each of the modems which will transmit and receive a stronger signal if two yagis are pointed directly towards each other (good for fixed positions) but the omni-directional antenna will allow us to receive and transmit data when if we are moving around in the field because it transmits and receives signal in every direction. Struan Cockcroft from the University of Kwa-Zulu Natal told us that he had a VLF antenna on the roof which was not being used anymore and if we took it down we could use the bracket for our antenna. So the first thing Amanda and I had to do was deinstall the old antenna which came off easily once we had unscrewed the clamps. But it was still quite cold on the roof early in the morning so unscrewing small screws gets tricky when your hands start to cramp and become numb from the cold. We hung around on the roof for a while waiting for Charlie Two (the second flight) to appear on the horizon so we could get some helicopter footage for our film.
It was getting warmer on the roof by the time we started installing the new antenna. Adam came up to check on the FM antenna and helped put in a couple of screws. I found another spare BNC cable on the roof which reached our new antenna. I tracked the cable down to the top floor science lab so with a small extension I think it will reach down to the I-TASC space in the bottom floor science lab. The end of the cable was a bit stressed from all the weather so I asked Zama if he would crimp a new connector on to it. Zama is an artist at crimping and soldering, and introduced me to a book called the Art of Electronics which I will buy for the I-TASC library when we get back to the other continents.
I checked in with Dries after we finished the installation. It was 2pm and the temp sensor had recorded a days high of -0.9 deg C. It felt like a spring day in Cape Town outside and Zama and I were in our t-shirts but we're still officially freezing.
05 January, 2007
by Adam HydeWell! The storm...the storm...according to the old hands it was just a baby, but its the biggest storm I have experienced. The constant wind speed peaked at about 53 knots with the highest gust being 60 knots (118 km/hr). It was amazing how the storm entered and left. At the beginning (4 days ago), there was an effect like dry ice. Wispy lines of white smoke gliding effortlessly along the slopes of our Nunatak. The lines of smoke increased in density and speed as the day grew, until it took on the appearance of a mass migration of ghosts fleeing from something we knew was coming towards us but we didn't fully comprehend. Then we started losing visibility, the smoke became a dense fog. It appeared to be still in the air, and it was only by looking down at the rocks immediately near us that you could see the cloud of granular ice speeding past. Still, on the second day you could see radio antenna emerging from the fog. It was only on the third day that the whiteness became complete, meaning that you couldn't see anything. It was on this day that we put on our winter clothes and went outside for a beer. Why not.
Then we were housebound for another day and finally the storm started clearing. Yesterday the winds were high but there was cloudy blue sky and today we have contrast between the blue on blue sky above and the beautiful white continent. So marked is the contrast it has a weird psychological acclimatizing effect. Only 5 days ago I would not have ventured outside without my protective clothing, I then weathered the storm from _inside_ the warm building, but now I somehow feel the warming contrast between the storm and the blue sky day and ventured outside on the roof in my pyjamas (albeit NZ merino jammies). I didn't feel the cold at all and enjoyed the heat of the sun for half an hour or so. The mind is a mysterious thing.
Throughout the storm I checked every few hours how my antenna (newly mounted on the roof) was going. There is a plastic bubble on top of the roof, like an upturned fish bowl, and you can stick your head into it from the top floor and see whats happening outside. It is quite fantastic to have your head in a 50 knot storm but be warm and safe, you feel somehow involved but disconnected at the same time like some kind of weird storm tourist.
The antenna was going well in the early stages of the storm but on the third day i could see that the top of the antenna looked twice as wide as the bottom. It appeared to me ( the antenna is about 15 metres from the bowl and you cant see it clearly in the storm) that something had ripped off the top of the antenna or that it had split. Tom checked it and suggested it was just that the top was vibrating a lot and the bottom was not as that was where it was mounted. I wasn't convinced, and finally today i could check it. What it actually was, was the top of the antenna had a thick coating of ice on the windward side. Ice is a hardy beast, and it had clung to the antenna and built up to an inch thickness even though the antenna was vibrating in the gale. Incredible. Also, the antenna is 100% OK which was a relief to me. I am glad I ignored the geeky antenna guys advice and purchased a high wind antenna which isn't really supposed to be used for FM, instead of a more power efficient FM antenna. The result is that the transmitter heats up a little more than if it was feeding a more suitable FM antenna (and the range is a little less) but the FM antenna wouldn't have lasted 1 hour in this last storm.
Just two days ago I had talked to one of the scientists about ice and antennas as it happens. There is an array here that measures the thickness of the ionoshpere. The field of the antenna is about the size of a tennis court. The spacing of the short antenna is about the same as the poles that are used for growing grapes, and they are also connected by wires to each other for stability giving the appearance of a desolate vineyard. One of the scientists explained to me the plans for protecting the antenna. If they have time before a storm comes they bulldoze banks of 'snow' (its not really snow, just granular ice) on the same side of antenna field as the storm is coming. The storm then blows the ice onto the antenna field. When the storm clears the ice warms, melts a little, and freezes as one big block. The frequencies that the antenna operate at are not effected by the layer of ice and so the intention is to cover the entire array under one big block of ice.
So, now we are getting on with business as usual. People seemed quite cheered by the clearing of the storm and many where outside as soon as they could. The station is pushing ahead, mostly under the fine steering hand of First Born. I am helping out as much as I can but I think 1st enjoys it and he wants to set up a small station in Alex (where he lives, near Johannesburg) so its good he learns as much as he can about it while he can. So I have been concentrating on some techy stuff, formatting machines for the use of the AWS and the station, making cables, testing the compression on the radio etc etc. It doesn't seem a lot but somehow these things have consumed me for the last 4 days.
The showers have been off for the last two days, and the laundry has been closed for four days because the storm doesn't allow people to walk the 100 metres to the ice smelter (where we convert ice to water for the base). My roommate Remmy...ah my roommate Remmy, what a guy!...well, I was cleaning the bathroom with him yesterday on skivvy duty and he went to get a bucket of water from the laundry to mop the floor. He came back quite bewildered as the laundry was locked. I suggested it was because we weren't allowed to use the laundry. "What?!" proclaimed the bewildered Remmy, "That cant be, I just did my laundry last night!"...he also had no idea of the ban on showers...quite amazing somehow that Remmy had missed the half dozen in-house PA announcements (Which can be heard in every room) stating that showers and laundry where off limits. Its as if he had just walked in this morning from the outside world to give us a hand...you gotta love the guy.