Dear Friends,
Jan has been a quiet month, with the scheduled delivery of 10 instruments deferred while the cause of the 3 premature instrument releases from the Laurentian Fan deployment was investigated. Guralp has concluded that the most likely cause is current leakage (calculated to be micro-Amps), from the hydrophone's 5V power supply to the burnwire, in a waterproof connector shared by both cables to pass through the pressure case. They are addressing the issue at a fundamental level by physically separating the two cables to have them go through different connectors, and will apply this modification to the batch 1 and 2 instruments once they are recovered. This has made it possible to proceed with acceptance tests and delivery of the batch 3 instruments, now expected towards the end of Feb. Meanwhile, we continue to track the 3 BOBS that send us daily emails as they journey home to the UK via Gulf Stream shipping.
On the project front, Michael Bostock has submitted an NSERC Alliance Grant proposal for five 12-month long deployments of 30 BOBS off the coast of BC. Thanks Michael.
Mladen and Graeme