December 20, 1999

Station carpenters, Steve Navarro (left) and Keith Tuley (right), construct a wind shelter for the Inmarsat B satellite antenna.

Monday brought the return of the Laurence M. Gould. It will be a quick turn around, with resupply and half a day of refueling for the Station. The ship will then stop by two remote stations at Copa and Cape Shirreff before returning to Punta Arenas.

Steve and Keith finished the wind shelter for our satellite antenna and began building small weatherproof housings for the wind harp mixer and for our wireless FM transmitter. The wind harp array is installed on the roof of the Bio Lab and the transmitter is one which Steve and I will place on Torgersen Island in one of the Adelie rookeries for live broadcasts to National Public Radio (NPR) in the US and to Westdeutscher Rundfunk in Cologne, Germany. In the early afternoon, we completed a successful test of the satellite broadcast system to NPR in Washington, DC. Everything is pretty much set for New Year's Eve!

In the meantime, I finished up interviewing folks for a New Zealand Radio project which will air on January 2, 2000. I have been truly amazed by the breadth and depth of talented individuals working at Palmer: quite a unique collection of people. It is a real privilege to be here!