Walking around the antenna arrays, we did observe a few wires hanging down but not as much as previously thought. The majority of these wires hanging down were the top reflector wire which appeared to have snapped after being worn through where the wire was threaded through an eyenut. Otherwise, there were a few minor places where a wire (conducting or non-conducting) was disconnected or needed to be secured to where it had been originally attached.

However, we noticed when we got to the radar that almost half of the transmitters on each radar were not transmitting due to problems along the antenna arrays. Without any large visual damage, each antenna and RF path was investigated on why it was not allowing the transmitter to put power out. The majority of these places along the antenna arrays needed a new coaxial cable that goes from the base of the pole up to the balun. The other common problem was that the lightning arresters at the base of the poles had gone bad. None of the arresters showed signs of direct lightning strikes, but Ryan had noted some storms over the summer had lots of lightning.

Early in the trip, we continued to observe problems with one of the computers at the site. It was suspected that the hard drives were going bad in the current computer. A spare hard drive at the site was pressed into service and the computer was restored with software backups.

Lastly, work was also performed to ensure the full operations of the electronics in the building and make sure nothing had gone amiss over the past year or so since the last site visit. Also, as seen in the picture, since cattle are no longer grazing in our section of the field, wild sunflower plants have sprouted up at random.