Today the AMF2 received its first visitors. Connor Flynn, Luc Rochette, Chuck Long, Kevin Widener and Nitin Bharadwaj showed up to work on the various instruments they are responsible for. Including the six AMF2 personnel already onsite, conditions are cozy to say the least.
Connor and company were working on the ASSISTII (the AMF2’s version of the AERI) throughout the evening and overnight. Chuck Long went up to StormPeak Lab to install sensors there. Kevin and Nitin showed up later in the day and took a tour of the valley site.
Rich and Tim spent most of the day up the mountain either at Christie Peak or at the Thunderhead site. They worked on prepping and protecting the Operations Van for future snow making days. They also worked on the data system with the folks from ANL.
At the Valley site, the CSPHOT was initialized and set up. The instrument field has been set up but has not been collecting data or had data quality checked. The VMs came online, and the LoggerNet system is now running, allowing us to see which sensors are not performing properly. We can now see data from the SKYRAD, GNDRAD, MET, MFRSR and SPN.
Later in the day, Mike Ritsche held a familiarization course for the volunteer radiosonde launchers. He went through the process of a whole launch so that they would get an understanding of the work involved. After the class, Mike said there were a lot of “saucer-shaped eyes” but he had confidence that the volunteers are going to be a great asset to the deployment. He promised the volunteers that there would be people around (mentors, AMF2 staff, etc) that had plenty of experience in launching radiosondes and they would have plenty of help, if required. Mike Turner, ATSC employee and AMF2 technician has launched 20 balloons a month for 15 years. We think he might have learned a thing or two about launching during that time.