Dartmouth College - Virginia Tech crew visits Blackstone to prepare antenna poles and related hardware for shipment to Iceland
By: miker on: Tue., June 08, 2021 05:24 PM EDT (5087 Reads)
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A combined crew of SuperDARN PIs, research staff, and students visited the Blackstone site June 6 - 10. The goal was to prepare antenna poles and hardware for shipment to Iceland where they will be incorporated into the build of a new dual radar site at Pykkvibaer. The equipment has been stored at the Blackstone site for about ten years as a site was sought to complete the build of radars under the NSF Mid-Sized Infrastructure (MSI) program. The new radars will effectively replace the previous radars located at Stokkseyri and Pykkvibaer. Much woodworking and heavy lifting was required on this trip. The DC crew counted Simon Shepherd (PI) and undergrad Nathaniel Alden while the VT crew counted Mike Ruohoniemi (PI), Kevin Sterne, grad student Ian Kelley, and undergrad Mark Higgins. A second visit is planned to relocate the equipment stacks into shipping containers for delivery to a shipyard.
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The previous dual radar sites that were built under the NSF MSI program are Fort Hays (Kansas), Christmas Valley (Oregon) and Adak (Aleutian Islands, Alaska)