Tomorrow, we plan on laying coax while the contractors are working on the box beams. So it is now full speed ahead...high winds will now be less likely to delay us since the poles are up.'
Tuesday, September 4, 2012: From Nathaniel: 'Today started out slowly, but we did much better in the end. There was a break in the weather, and we raised poles after dinner. Now, all of the poles are up except for interferometer east. Hopefully we will get through that this morning.'
Thursday, August 30, 2012: All poles on the East Main Array have now been raised, and the electronics hut now has electricity and transmitters! The East main array has also had its initial guying and leveling completed, and the reflector curtain wires have been strung. Approximately half of the antennas on the East Main Array have been attached to the horizontal guys. This work is slow due to the fact that it must be done in a bucket truck. Today, contractors and SuperDARN staff worked on attaching the box beams to this array, which also took a significant amount of time. Poles for the West Main Array are scheduled to be raised tomorrow.
August 25 Update: Kevin and I have been on Adak for 2 days. Yesterday we positioned the poles and started dressing them. Today we will continue dressing the poles. The first poles should be raised Tuesday. The weather has been surprisingly good so far.
August 21 Update: Travel by VT personnel to Adak begins - Nathaniel departs from Blacksburg while Kevin will leave from Hays, Kansas following his maintenance trip to the Fort Hays radars.
August 3 Update: Bill is in Adak meeting with the contractor. His advice to the build crew - bring good rain gear!
July 27 Udate: The barge is expected to arrive in Adak on August 7th. The digging and pouring of foundations can then commence on August 9 and the towers can start to be raised around August 25.
The VT SuperDARN group will send a two-man team to assist Bill in the construction, RF Engineer Kevin Sterne and PhD student Nathaniel Frissell.
July 11 Update: All of the shipments have arrived in Seattle and will be loaded on a barge that will float the building materials for the Adak radar up to Adak Island. The other day Bill Bristow noted that the day that the barge leaves Seattle may be delayed a few days. This delay in the departure date may or may not impact the construction schedule.
Revised barge shipping date: July 17th
July 5th Update: The poles and all other shipments are in Seattle awaiting to be loaded on the barge that will take them to Adak. That is all shipments save one small box of cables which should arrive in Seattle on the 6th. The barge is set sail in a week's time on July 12th and is planned to arrive on Adak on August 1st.
The antenna poles and related hardware are on their way from the plant in Renfrew, Ontario to the staging point for the Adak build in Seattle, Washington on the backs of large trucks. The current plan has the barge arriving in Adak at the end of July and construction beginning in August.
Background: The third MSI dual-radar radar build will take place in Adak, Alaska in the late summer of 2012. The site PI is Prof. Bill Bristow of the University Of Alaska Fairbanks. The first two MSI dual-radar builds were completed in Hays, Kansas (2009) and Christmas Valley, Oregon (2010). The fourth is planned for Graciosca Island, Azores (Portugal).
Facts about Adak:
Southern-most community in Alaska
The name derives from Aleut for "father."
The latitude is 51.88 N and the longitude is -176.658 W.
Elevation is 164 feet.
The estimated population, in 2003, was 298.
For more information about the island of Adak and the community, see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adak
The construction of the mid-latitude chain of SuperDARN radars is supported by the National Science Foundation under the Mid-Sized Infrastructure (MSI) program.
