Tuesday 6 August 2013

Tuesday 6th August 2013

It was another lovely day today with no wind and it was snowing most of the day. I spent the morning doing the usual emails and making a few calls. After smoko I did a bit of work in the hydroponics hut checking the fertiliser concentrations and refilling the storage tanks. The place is now like a jungle and we regularly prune heaps of vegetation just so we can move around in there. So far this season we have produced 80.4 kilograms of food and we are on track to beat last year’s total of 150. The cherry tomatoes are my favourite and the lettuce is pretty good too.

The rest of the day and night was spent working on the interface to the Quadra amplifier. I must have spent ten hours on it and still had no joy in getting it to work. I am determined not to let it beat me, but I might take some time away from it to regather my thoughts. The problem is this amplifier is a Barrett 2075 which is basically a rebadged Yaesu FL-1000 Quadra. Barrett has changed the band switching from parallel BCD to serial 16-bit I2C-bus. I am attempting to bypass the serial and connect directly to the internal Quadra Band-Data 2 parallel BCD connection but the amplifier is very difficult to work on. Also when you read things like this about the connection diagrams in the Quadra manual “It is known that the Band Data 1 connection information from the Yaesu Quadra manual is incorrect in at least some instances. So proceed with caution until the Band Data 1 connection information is verified” it makes you wonder that any one has succeeded in interfacing this amplifier to anything? As well as this I am using a third party software program that seems to be working OK but I can’t get the band change data out of the PC parallel port. Never mind, I’m sure I will figure it out shortly.

Tomorrow I was planning to go to Auster Emperor Penguin rookery for the day but with the way the weather is today I think I will postpone the trip for finer conditions.                             






These ads have started to appear in our news papers and we are getting nervous about whether they will let us back in to Australia?

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3 comments:

  1. Anonymous7 August 2013 at 19:55

    Now there's something I bet you thought you'd never say for work " I did a bit of work in the hydroponics hut checking the fertiliser concentrations "

    How's the cabin fever going????

    Matt H.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous8 August 2013 at 12:31

    Hi Craig, when we completely destroy this earth you have proven we can go underground and produce food, providing we have energy!
    Is there much info or have you guys noticed much idication over the years of global warming?
    Rgds PC

    ReplyDelete
  3. Craig Hayhow9 August 2013 at 00:51

    Hi guy's,

    The sun is back and the days are getting longer by 9 minutes each day so that means more time out in the field. We are actually experiencing global cooling down here with more snow and ice on memory and some of our buildings are going under. I suspect it is just a long term cycle. Unlike the North Pole, there is so much ice down here I suspect global warming will take a long time to have an effect down here. The real problem with Antarctica is acidification of the ocean affecting the food chain.

    Regards,

    Craig

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