Dearest Bear Fans,
Our NPS Tech Guru just updated us on the latest developments with the bear cam at Brooks Falls. Read on for a primer on what the terms "technical difficulties" and "remote operations" entail.
I hope you will all realize the amount of effort that has been going in to bringing you live bears. We all hoped it would happen this summer, but hopes are getting slim and slimmer. We should know all the pitfalls before we intiate next summer's project, as we seem to have run into everything that could possibly be challenging this summer.
Elizabeth
All,
Well, it has been about 5 weeks since our last update and thought I should let you know what has been going on. About 4 weeks ago Tom and crew went back to Dumpling mountain and installed the two additional repeaters for the direct link to the Upper Falls and add an extra bank of batteries for the extra equipment. This redesign was necessitated by the inability to get adequate signal strength through the 1-2 miles of dense vegetation on the ground between the camp repeater and the viewing platform. All equipment was successfully installed and sited from the temp site (two sites on Dumpling - first is main radio tower and - second is the temp site 1/2 mile away on the shoulder of mountain which provides line of site in to the Brooks Camp). While installing the new repeaters at the temp site, we visited the main tower site and realized that the site was no longer operational. After analyzing, we found that 3/4 of the (new) batteries were completely drained (defective) and the solar array was operating at about 50% of spec. Also, the additional Brooks camp repeater was failing (on the ground). We were unable to correct all these problems on site, so the crew stopped work and came back to Anchorage.
Last week we went back to Katmai and were able to get all the batteries replaced at the main tower location and 3 of the 4 solar panels installed. We lost the weather and had to get off the mountain. 15 minutes before we left, the temp site went off-line. The crews waited on the ground for three days for the weather to break and it did not. They returned to Anchorage on Monday morning.
Currently we have another trip scheduled at the end of next week (weather permitting) to finish up on the mountaintop. We have one solar panel top finish replacing, and "we think" that batteries at the temp site have discharged as a result of no sunshine (solar recharge) for the last several weeks (worst overcast weather we have had in Alaska in many years). We will bring a fresh set of batteries for this trip. We have also received the replacement repeater for the camp location and will replace that after we finish on the mountain.
We have completed most (if not all) of the facility work at the Pratt Museum as well as the Katmai HQ (network, servers, switches, etc) and have tested a VoIP phone from the Katmai HQ to the NPS HQ in Anchorage which was a very clear connection. Once we have the radio system playing and stable, we should be able to provide phone service to the Camp.
We expect to have a video signal from the Upper Falls platform by the end of next week but, realistically, I don't think we are going to see any bears on the system this season. We are committed to seeing this installation through (this year) and do not foresee any serious technical issues in our way, although Mother Nature and Murphys Law are proving to be formidable scheduling headaches.