Site technicians watch over instruments deployed by the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) user facility and make sure they run smoothly in the field.
For the next 17 months, technicians Tom Day and Frank Zurek of Hamelmann Communications will remain in northwestern Tasmania to monitor and maintain instruments during ARM’s Cloud And Precipitation Experiment at kennaook (CAPE-k).
Day and Zurek are well acquainted with supporting ARM Mobile Facility deployments like CAPE-k. They both worked on the 2021–2023 Surface Atmosphere Integrated Field Laboratory (SAIL) campaign near Crested Butte, Colorado.
SAIL involved the deployment of the second ARM Mobile Facility in Gothic and an ARM Aerosol Observing System and a Colorado State University precipitation radar on Crested Butte Mountain. Day and Zurek were among five operations team members who received 2023 ARM Service Awards for their successful operation of the SAIL sites in remote and harsh conditions.
Both technicians have been in Tasmania since January 2024, when they began to help with CAPE-k site construction and installation at the Kennaook/Cape Grim Baseline Air Pollution Station. Other members of the CAPE-k installation team were:
- Heath Powers, ARM Mobile Facility manager, Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) in New Mexico
- Anna Bardin, deputy project manager, LANL
- Savannah Byron, install technician, LANL
- Julie Donohue, install technician, Hamelmann Communications
- Tercio Silva, install technician, Fundação Gaspar Frutuoso
- Michael Abraham, technical coordinator, Hamelmann Communications
- Tyler Campbell, skilled technician, Hamelmann Communications.
In addition, ARM instrument mentors traveled to Tasmania or worked remotely to support instrument setup for CAPE-k.
For more on the installation, check out this ARM blog from Powers.
# # #ARM is a DOE Office of Science user facility operated by nine DOE national laboratories.