Summary
InstallDetails
- Mike Warner from USACE helped coordinate the installation of the electrical junction box. The junction box includes a 15A plug as well as bare wires that connect to the rest of the RADMet to provide AC. The junction box was installed near the concrete pad. The USACE electrician, Steve Bjerk, did the trenching, cabling and install of the box.
- The RadMet enclosure was installed on two poles using pipe hangers and a unistrut frame, with the GOES, GPS, and radio antennas mounted above it.
- AC power for the RadMet was connected via size ¾ ” flex PVC conduit to a junction box.
- The MRR, tipping bucket and disdrometer were installed on dedicated poles with a junction box mounted on each one for terminating the conduit coming from the RadMet enclosure. The heights of the poles were predetermined based on the historical snow height. The goal is to keep the instruments out of snow.
- Using he team ran liquidtight flex PVC conduit size 1-¼” from the RadMet enclosure to the MRR junction box (containing the data and AC cables), size ¾ ” from the RadMet enclosure to the tipping bucket junction box (containing an AC cable), and size ¾ ” from the RadMet enclosure to the disdrometer junction box (containing the disdrometer data/power cable)
- The holes for each pole were dug with a combination of an auger, hammer drill, dig bar, and post hole digger. The auger had an 8in diameter bit and got us to about 1 foot deep. The rest of the way needed to be dug with a hammer drill and post hole digger. There is a significant amount of rocks in the area which makes it difficult to dig. This also caused the holes to widen in diameter. The team decided to go roughly a 1 ½ feet deep since the footing began to widen after the removal of several rocks, and used more concrete than expected to fill the holes back up.
- There were a total of 4 trenches dug. There was one trench dug about 18 inches going from the RADMet enclosure to the MRR. Another trench going from the enclosure to the tipping bucket roughly 14 to 16 inches. The trench from the enclosure of the disdrometer was about 6 to 8 inches. Finally, the trench from the tipping bucket to the SurfaceMet was about 6 to 8 inches as well.
- The tipping bucket signal cable was run to the surface Met enclosure through a 6” deep trench in through aluminum flex conduit.
- RADMet followed most of the computer setup in the RAD-Met Rugged Computer Setup . The only differences were all steps related to the cell were skipped (this includes the FTP setup). This site uses GOES to transmit data, and the transmitter used is the FTS G6-DB. The instructions to set up the FTS G6-DB are in their manual. Additional steps for the processing script and the the FTS G6-DB are located in Tacoma Radmet Data Setup .
- The SurfaceMet was installed following the best practices in the SurfaceMet_DeploymentManual
- A barb-wire fence was placed around the site and can be accessed near the junction box. There is one fence post taller than the rest this is where the gate is located.