The weather was finally good on Tuesday, January 15 for us to fly. Lee and I got really excited to go to Janet. Janet needed a raise and it was originally installed upside down, so in this case meant a raise would have required a complete reinstall of the tower. We were expecting a lot of digging. Luckily we were able to take three moral people with us to the field – they helped us dig out the station really fast.

The weather was perfect and everything was going really well.   We managed to put the station together despite the fact that old tower was not particularly straight and welcoming of a new section. We also had a issue with a aerovane boom – actually we have issues with every single boom this season. Lee did wonders with the hammer though and was able to get the boom onto the tower.

With the help of all the moral people put new anchors and secure the new tower in place. Since we are not as experienced as the riggers are it was really nice to have extra people to support anchors as Lee and I tried to straighten the tower.  It wasn’t perfect, but it was the best we could do by ourselves.

Unfortunately for us the new battery we brought to Janet burned the charge controller, because we didn’t connect it properly back in McMurdo. So a perfect day of working hard, digging, putting the tower back and attaching all instruments did not end as well as it could have.

Luckily Lee and I took a spare battery from McMurdo to WAIS. All we need is another day of good weather to go back to Janet. Extra luckily for us the next day, Wednesday, January 16, twin otter went off to support the traverse operation. However, the weather at the traverse site changed fort he worse and the plane returned just in time to do a quick trip to Janet to fix it. Janet was fixed the next day and it is transmitting!

<picture of Lee at the tower>

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