E25K (AEC-AON)

Station Notes

ADOPTED BY THE AEC
Co-located with PBO AB46
Station equipment is housed in a black tote in the back room in the Arctic Village/ANWR Visitor Center.
- Fish & Wildlife rent the rest of the building from the village.
- Access key is from village chief (Tiffany Yatlin at time of install). She is not always in town, so it may be necessary to jimmy open the door using a credit card or thin metal object. Fortunately the deadbolt has never been locked. In dire circumstances, there are reports from former PBO staff that it's possible to remove the door from its hinges to gain access.
LB mounted to exterior wall, cable passthrough insulated well.
GPS antenna passes through a hole in the wall and is mounted to a pipe on the corner of the building previously occupied by a PBO WISP antenna, which has been inactive for ~8years.
Summer, 2018: AC power connection failed down the hill at the power garage. Jim reported that the transformer box sunk several feet due to ground subsidence, thereby pulling the wires out fo the transformer. The F&W building does not have an as-built because it was built in the wrong place, so nobody knows where the subsurface cables run. There was no opportunity to repair the damage before winter, 2018. A team visited in mid-October to install a temporary AC power connection involving 300' of direct-bury cable and a trench across the airport road. Both PBO and TA equipment are powered off of one dedicated outlet.
When the station is repaired in 2019, Jim H will plan to hard wire the TA circuit into building power, which was the original plan.

Service Plan

Site Access

Fixed Wing to Arctic Village

Site Contact

Permitting: Tiffany Yatlin, Arctc Village Council, 907-587-5523.
Technical: Jim Hollandsworth, 907-799-1534 (cell), 907-587-5348 (home).

Site Visit

2020_09_28 Removal (Adopted by AEC)
USArray Station Removal Report
Form V1.5

STATION CODE: TA.E25K

STATION LOCALE DESCRIPTION: Arctic Village, AK, USA

STATION REMOVAL LOG DATE: 20200928

STATION/SENSOR DOWN TIME (UTC): N/A
REMOVAL DESCRIPTION: Site was adopted by AEC and has not been removed.
ACTIONS TAKEN: Site was not visited during the adoption process.
LAT/LONG OF SENSOR HOLE: N/A

Top of Casing to hole bottom (indicate if sand present or evacuated): N/A
Bottom of wellcap to grade level: N/A
SENSOR ORIENTATION MEASUREMENTS:
Measured with Octans Unit: N/A
Measured with rods on pin: N/A
Casing/wellcap marked with reference orientation: N/A
SENSOR ORIENTATION: N/A
COMMENTS:
PBO co-located site, remote acquisition changeover to AK network.
REMOVED: N/A
DAMAGE: N/A
LEFT AT SITE: N/A
VISITORS:
Nate Murphy
NEXT VISIT: N/A
SITE STATUS: N/A
HOLE STATUS: N/A
2019_08_29 Service (R. Bierma)
STATION CODE:
TA.E25K

STATION Locale Description:
Arctic Village, AK, USA

STATION SERVICE LOG DATE:
20190829

STATION/SENSOR DOWN TIME (UTC):
2010-2020 UTC

SERVICE DESCRIPTION:
Return electrical system to original configuration with power supplied by the FWS building outlets.
Remove temporary electrical infrastructure
VSAT comms check
baler media

UPON ARRIVAL:
Site was in good condition and was operating normally. No sign of animal activity at the site. The storage room door inside the FWS building has been forced open with a crowbar, it no longer locks.

ACTIONS TAKEN:
All temporary electrical infrastructure removed. The 200' of direct bury cable was left behind for the village, or for us to backhaul next year if we remove this station.
PBO equipment was wired back onto their dedicated circuit.
TA equipment is plugged into a wall socket along with the vsat dish heater. The circuit is breaker 1, labeled “Outlets Room 1”. A piece of orange tape was attached to the breaker with a label asking to “Leave ON”.
The Hughes dish on the roof is in good condition. Signal strength is currently 60-61, I attempted to pull the dish in different directions in hopes of an improved signal, but it did not get better. This is a very far north location for a Hughesnet, and it’s my recollection that the signal has never been very good.
The VSAT dish heater appears functional. It is on a timer, set to turn on 10 am- 7 pm, daily.
Infrasound port was unplugged. No additional hose or wave-routing apparatus was attached to the port due to our confinement inside a building.
Baler media was swapped

EQUIPMENT REMOVED:
n/a

EQUIPMENT INSTALLED:
n/a

COMMENTS:
Enclosure locked prior to departure. The room that houses our equipment has always been locked at the knob, however someone took a crowbar to the latch and it is only partially functional. The door was open when I arrived. This may increase likelihood of meddling in the future.

VISITOR:
Ryan Bierma

ON NEXT VISIT:
n/a

CHANGES AFFECT INSTRUMENT RESPONSE:
None
2019_08_15 Service (J. Hollandsworth-Local Contact)
STATION CODE:
TA.E25K
STATION Locale Description:
Arctic Village, Alaska
STATION SERVICE LOG DATE:
20190815
STATION/SENSOR DOWN TIME (UTC):
station brought back on line ~2325 UTC

SERVICE DESCRIPTION:
Sub-panel breaker turned back on, station power and comms returned to normal.

UPON ARRIVAL:
Jim found the sub-panel breaker tripped, the result of a recent lightning strike.

ACTIONS TAKEN:
After looking at some photos and thinking about the power system configuration, I realized that the power is sitting behind 3 breakers - main panel, in line GFCI device, and sub-panel. Jim Hollandsworth had already checked the main breaker in the power house a couple weeks ago, but I asked if he would be willing to go down again and check the breaker inside the visitor center building where our equipment is hosted. He found that breaker tripped. As soon as he turned it on, he saw lights illuminate. The station resumed operation and the PBO VSAT modem turned on. I was able to remotely log in to Willard. Data comms should return to normal shortly.

EQUIPMENT REMOVED:
n/a

EQUIPMENT INSTALLED:
n/a

COMMENTS:
A reminder that a service visit will be made in late August to remove the now unnecessary wiring infrastructure that powered the station last winter. Power was restored to the F&W building.
Jim also mentioned that F&W will be building a cabin in the vicinity of the visitor center building, but it would not affect TA/PBO equipment. However, it will prompt them to rewire everything in that area and do it correctly. He estimates that it might happen beginning summer, 2020.
Willard shows time of last reboot to be January, 2019, so it appears that the station stayed alive the past 3 weeks on the battery backup!

VISITOR:
Jim Hollandsworth, local contact in Arctic Village

ON NEXT VISIT:
Return power system to original configuration, powered on a building outlet. Remove unnecessary equipment and cabling.
Swap USB media

CHANGES AFFECT INSTRUMENT RESPONSE:
None
2019_08_01 Service (J. Holladsworth-Local Contact)
STATION CODE:
TA.E25K
STATION Locale Description:
Arctic Village, Alaska
STATION SERVICE LOG DATE:
20190801
STATION/SENSOR DOWN TIME (UTC):
currently down due to power issue

SERVICE DESCRIPTION:
local contact to check on power connection after recent lighting storm disruptions

UPON ARRIVAL:
n/a

ACTIONS TAKEN:
n/a

EQUIPMENT REMOVED:
n/a

EQUIPMENT INSTALLED:
n/a

COMMENTS:
Near term:
I spoke with Jim Hollandsworth (8/1/19). He said they experienced a really bad lightning storm there last week, with 3 confirmed ground strikes within the village. It apparently caused a lot of problems. He was not surprised that IRIS & PBO equipment was offline. He said he would check whether the breaker for our circuit was tripped today.

Long term:
Jim said that the power problem to the F&W building that hosts our equipment has been resolved. They had a lineman in this summer who did a bunch of cable tracking. There is a sub-panel in the power building that supplies power to another sub-panel up the hill in the F&W building where our equipment is hosted. This layout was unknown until recently, and apparently one of the city workers had intentionally flipped the sub-panel breaker off in order to see what it did, and never turned it back on. The whole 'sinking transformer' was a red herring, having nothing to do with the power to the F&W building. We will return to the village this season to clean up the temporary power setup and repair any damage from the lightning.

VISITOR:
Jim Hollandsworth, local contact in Arctic Village

ON NEXT VISIT:
n/a
CHANGES AFFECT INSTRUMENT RESPONSE:
None
2018_12_13 Service (R. Bierma, E. Boyce)
USArray Station Service Report
Form V1.0

STATION CODE:
TA.E25K

STATION Locale Description:
Arctic Village, AK, USA
STATION SERVICE LOG DATE:
20181213
STATION/SENSOR DOWN TIME (UTC)
1015-1100

SERVICE DESCRIPTION:
Replace faulty Baler/media
Plug in UNAVCO's VSAT dish heater plug

UPON ARRIVAL:
Site was in good condition. Power system was good. Comms active. Reconfirmed Baler green screen indication of faulty media. It was too cold to do much else without breaking cables.

ACTIONS TAKEN:
Q330, VIE, Triport cable and Aux cable were swapped.
An extension cord was fished out of the wall junction box and tacked along the building up to the dish heater plug in. Ellie didn't dare unravel the 15' of actual dish heater cable because the jacketing fractured with a slight bend. The inside cable was terminated with a male plug, plugged into a timer (on from 1900-0300 UTC, daytime hours in AK), and plugged into the wall along with UNAVCO and TA enclosures. Plugging it in was the last action taken, just in case the load blew the GFCI breaker down the hill in the garage, however, this did not happen (this will be worth watching though).

EQUIPMENT REMOVED:
Q330 TagId = 1689
Q330 sn = 0100000B64FFC5DF
Q330 bc = 5004450

baler sn = 18417
baler bc = 5010814

QEP sn 117151
QEP bc = 5003397

infra Setra sn = 4495404
infra Setra bc = 5010732

infra NCPA sn = H110480183
infra NCPA bc = 5011296

Power System 0
Power Pnl ver. =Morningstar VIE
Power Pnl bc = 5009056
Power Brd sn = 65
Power Brd bc = 5009671

EQUIPMENT INSTALLED:
Q330 TagId = 2166
Q330 sn = 0100000EBD57105A
Q330 bc = 5005979

baler sn = 16250
baler bc = 5006334

QEP sn 116970
QEP bc = 5001423

infra Setra sn = 4719230
infra Setra bc = 5012331

infra NCPA sn = H110900288
infra NCPA bc = 5011432

Power System 0
Power Pnl ver. =Morningstar VIE
Power Pnl bc = 5013069
Power Brd sn = 619
Power Brd bc = 5011338

COMMENTS:
As usual, the locked door has to be jimmied open with a flat, thin card, i.e. credit card. The deadbolt is not thrown. Nobody in the village is currently known to have a key. The hinges are on the inside of the door and inaccessible, contrary to speculation in a previous report, so if the deadbolt is ever thrown, it will be tough luck.
During testing, the jacketing on the QNET cable inside the UNAVCO enclosure cracked very close to the RJ45 connector. It did not change station behavior, but hopefully it was just the jacketing and does not become a problem when the station thaws.
Temps were forecast to be around -20F. The airplane's analogue temp dial said -40, but I doubt that (our nose hairs weren't freezing yet, which is a good -40 marker). Another nearby station was at -31F, I suspect that's about where we were. It was chilly.
Ellie used her ladder to climb on the roof and clear the VSAT dish of snow.
VISITOR:
Ryan Bierma
Ellie Boyce (UNAVCO)

ON NEXT VISIT:
please refer to previous Service Report for list of work to do next Spring/Summer
Bring a 6' step ladder if work needs to be done on the roof

CHANGES AFFECT INSTRUMENT RESPONSE:
n/a
2018_10_29 Service (R. Bierma, J. Theis)
USArray Station Service Report
Form V1.0
STATION CODE:
TA.E25K
Station Local Description:
Arctic Village, AK, US
STATION SERVICE LOG DATE:
20181019
STATION SENSOR DOWN TIME (UTC):
Station has been down for several months due to power problem
SERVICE DESCRIPTION:
Install temporary alternate AC power system
UPON ARRIVAL:
Aside from having no power, the station is in good condition.
ACTION TAKEN
A 40 foot trench was chipped out of the frozen ground across the main road to the airport using a trencher and Hilti hammer drills. Minimum depth of the trench in some places was only 4-5", but we were able to cover the IMC conduit completely and were assured by the grader driver that he doesn't grade down to the surface during the winter.
300 feet of 10/3 UF direct-bury cable was strung out along the ground and through the conduit between the power garage and the F&W shack. A small LB was installed in the garage wall to pass cable through. The cable is terminated with a standard wall plug. We added a single GFCI device in line as a precaution in case of cable damage outside. We also have no guarantee that the plug won't be pulled at some point, but we chose the one that seemed least likely to be messed with. The other end of the cable was routed through our preexisting sub box that was never wired, it made for a neat pass through the wall and wired into our own dedicated circuit. AC power at our circuit in the F&W shack was 118.9V, so only a slight drop in the 300 feet distance.
All power systems were tested sequentially before devices were plugged in. Everything tested out well. Repowering the TA equipment was a simple unplug and replug into a different outlet.

EQUIPMENT REMOVED:
n/a
EQUIPMENT INSTALLED:
n/a

COMMENTS:
The trenching work was very difficult and uncooperative. We had hoped the ground hadn't frozen up quite so solid yet this early in the season The trencher that we flew in from Fairbanks, a 450 pound heavy duty machine, struggled mightily with the frozen ground. Much of the actual progress was made using Hilti hammer drills and chisel bits. In places we were able to get down about 10-12", but some places were only 4-5" depth. If were had another full day to dedicate to chipping away, we could get a proper 10-12" for the conduit, but the impending terrible weather, daylight, and pilot duty day were all closing us down.
PBO's AC station power connection was rewired off of their standard breaker circuit and onto an appliance plug; this in now plugged into the dedicated TA outlet. All PBO systems appeared to return to normal- the NetRS had correct lights and blinks, the comms came back online within a couple minutes of power up. The two batteries were swapped because they were down to 2.5V.
The station is fully operational again, however it must be emphasized that this is a temporary fix. We need to proactively address the power problem in Spring. We were assured by the grader driver that the conduit depth was good enough and both he and Jim H. said that draping the cable along the ground down to the garage would be fine. My biggest concerns are: a) a snow machine ski catching the cable and ripping it out, and b) once Spring comes and the road thaws that the grader will dig in too deep and catch the conduit. Jason and I both agreed that it would be a good idea to follow up on this several times this winter. Hopefully Jim will be willing to send reports back, but it may be worth having someone fly out to check at some point.
We should keep a close and consistent eye on the AC power/charging. This system has higher probability than normal for failure, whether through the plug being pulled in the garage or the cable being damaged. If any problems are noticed, Jim Hollandsworth should be contacted immediately, check the Wiki for his contact info.

VISITOR:
Ryan Bierma
Jason Theis
Matt (Everts pilot)

ON NEXT VISIT:
Properly fix the AC power system. This will require an electrician from Fairbanks and a lot of time and planning. It will not happen until after full thaw in the summer, 2019.
Several things need to be re-wired/properly wired in the building for the TA and PBO equipment once it looks like power will be fixed.
2018_10_10 Service (R. Bierma)
2016_07_12 Install (R. Bierma, M. Sanders, J. Theis)
No Recon Report