Barrow Soil Moisture

Overview

This small site is intended to help Anna & Bob prepare for their soil moisture site installation in Barrow ~9/20 - 2/24. I'm thinking we could also include links to the programs once they're done, the site layout (to refresh my memory among other things)

Station 1 (We can totally change the names here)

File:Sample thermistor.jpg

A really zoomed in thermistor similar to what we'll be making.

This is the larger station which will have most soil moisture probes. Station one will have:

• Instrumentation
  • Instrument Box
  • CR10X datalogger
  • AM416 Multiplexer
  • XXX Soil Moisture probes
  • XXX Thermistor probes
• Power system
  • Charge controller
  • Solar Panel
  • Large deep cycle lead-acid battery
  • Plastic Battery Box

• Cable Protection etc.
  • Flexible metallic conduit
  • Duct seal to prevent water from going into the instrument box
  • colored electrical tape for labeling thermistor strings and then more tape for identifying where sensors are to be placed on the ground.

Station 2

This is the smaller station which will be close to station one but will have a narrower focus. Station two will have:

• Instrumentation
  • Instrument Box
    • mounting hardware for securing instrumentation in the box
    • probably several sizes of PVC fittings would be good to have for feeding the cabling through rather than just having it come straight into the box (easier to use for water protection). I say several sizes only because I have no idea at the moment (we could probably estimate though) how much space all of our cabling is going to take up.
  • CR10X datalogger
  • AM416 Multiplexer
  • XXX Soil Moisture probes
  • XXX Thermistor probes

• Power system
  • Charge controller
  • Solar Panel
  • Large deep cycle lead-acid battery
  • Plastic Battery Box
  • Several feet of power cable
  • A fuse holder and couple extra fuses would be a good idea, too

• Cable Protection etc.
  • Flexible metallic conduit
  • Duct seal to prevent water from going into the instrument box
  • colored electrical tape for labeling thermistor strings and then more tape for identifying where sensors are to be placed on the ground.

The thermistor probes will be taped to the soil moisture probes so they're measuring the same position vertically in the soil column (a side note, I wonder if we should position the thermistors in the dirt along side the soil moisture probes so they're in the same soil rather than in the uncompacted back fill.... just something to mull).

Site Logistics

Lots of logistics. First off things are arriving to Fairbanks and Barrow.

Fairbanks Logisitics

Probably will have some stuff to send up on Ak Air cargo / that other company you mentioned we could fill go over those things here

Equipment we'll bring up from Fairbanks

• Bob's toolbag
• laptop computer
• Campbell Keypad and SC32B communications deal
• Extra tarps to put soil on / weather protection when we're doing instrument box stuff (could get the ones we used in July from Nome)
• I have a cordless sawz-all at home I could bring
• measuring tape (8m metal variety) for siting the sensors vertically
• 2 pack frames for hauling instrument boxes, sensors, etc. out to the site
• hole punches for enlarging the holes in the instrument boxes (I'm kind of guessing that we will probably need to do something like this given the amount of cabling we're going to be bringing into the instrument boxes)
• colored electrical tape for easily identifying thermistors and then later thermistor/soil moisture pairs (we can get this from Jessie, I think she has all the colors)

Barrow Logistics

Stuff we'll be doing in Barrow or needing to take care of up there

Shopping to do in Barrow

• Deep cycle lead-acid batteries (2)
• In-line fuse holder & 2 packages of extra fuses
• rebar
• silicone (pending your thoughts on making the thermistors in Fairbanks)

Supplies we can get from BASC

• measuring tape (150m cloth variety)for siting the sensors and stuff horizontally (can they supply this? If not we can grab one from 106)
• shovels
• sawz-all saw for cutting the metal flexible conduit (corded one perhaps?)... we only need one but we'll definitely need one to cut the conduit.
• Fish tape (for pulling soil moisture sensor cable through the conduit)... we should check if they have one we can use

Instrumentation logistics

• Did you talk to Doug about getting a second instrument box (sorry, I just can't remember how that one worked out... or if I was going to be doing something), alternately, we could also bring the Kuzitrin box back to town for use on your stuff (how's that sound?)

In-situ measurements

• duff soil moisture meter
• thermal conductivity meter

Programming

• could we go over again how many cs616s & thermistors will be needed in each program

Trip Itinerary

Anna's Trip Dates

9/20 - 9/24 (do these dates sound good or do you still want to fly up a day or two before me?)

Bob's Trip Dates

9/20 - 9/24 (A first proposition)