This is part of a three-step approach to bringing the station back online:
- Finding out why the cellular modem went offline (Oct 2nd).
- Finding out why the station lost power (Oct 4th).
- Finding out why the RF radios aren't working.
For (1) the cellular modem, it does not appear to be malfunctioning. It was reachable on land via wireless connection several times during troubleshooting operations jointly undertaken by David Benavente, Steven Johnson and Ross Timmerman last November. It merely seems to have gone spontaneously offline on October 2nd, and then later its station power supply seemed to have failed by November 29th. The only thing that stands out from its diagnostics is the unusually high number of "system resets" noted by Ross.
One possible avenue of investigation concerns an AT&T cellular modem that AOML is operating here in South Florida at a test station in Fort Lauderdale. On January 23rd I noticed that this modem's communications were undergoing frequent resets in a way reminiscent of the Docomo modem had done in Saipan before failing. I have relatively easy access to this modem if it should fail, and I've contacted Campbell Scientific support to try to interest them in looking at our software logs from this test station.
For (2) the station's loss of power, we will see if we learn anything from our examination of the brain. [It's entirely possible that we will find that everything appears to be normal, in which case we can only return the brain to Saipan and attempt reinstallation.] Earlier this week we successfully concluded another test of the electronics when David powered up both the datalogger and the cellular modem on the workbench, and I was able to connect to the logger from our systems here in Florida. I was able to download all of the 1-day, 60-minute, 6-minute and 1-minute data tables while this test was still running. So our analysis will initially focus on the wires and connections that supply power to all of these components.
Regarding (3) the RF radios, we have a success to report. David and Steven were able to get their RF radio connection working on land, after reviewing some configuration settings that I suggested might be causing problems. This is a very important step because it means they will have a way to connect to the station from a laptop in the boat, when it comes time to reinstall the brain. They will know immediately, after powering up the station, whether it is running and whether all of the instruments are properly connected. [There is still no way to tell from the boat whether the cellular modem is working properly. We might be able to brainstorm something if they have a wireless internet connection out there, or just coordinate their reinstallation so that they have someone to call on land who can try to connect to the modem.]
Mike Jankulak