Day One
Arrived at last.
We set off at 6:30 am to Manchester Airport. Having got caught in traffic a little bit we were still in plenty of time for the first flight. No problems to report and we arrived in Copenhagen. We did toy with the idea of attempting to get onto an earlier flight to Oslo but it was somewhat unfeasible due to the crowd at the transfer desk and the time we had to make the flight.
This turned out to be a result as our seats on the flight to Oslo were next to an exit. Lots of leg room :-)
Plus the TV monitors showed the view from an exterior camera on takeoff. Very cool, I had not seen that before.
Things started to fall apart when we reached Oslo. Our flight to Tromso was cancelled which left us with an extra 2 hour wait. We did bump into Mike Rietveld and Brett Isham who were heading upto the site, but they were on an earlier flight with a different airline, I don't know who.
Having boarded the plane (tiny leg space!) I was vaguely amused to see the baggage handler loading our cases onto the aircraft, but was less amused at his deliberate mishandling. Very heavy handed with no reason to be. One slight worry was that I failed to see the photometer case being loaded.
Thankfully the pilot on this leg did it very quickly and we arrived in Tromso at ~08:00 local time. Thankfully the photometer appeared, though quite late after our personal luggage and so I suspect it was loaded early. The guy at the AVIS desk was waiting for us (thanks to Mike Kosch and Ian McCrea) and we got an upgrade to a Toyota Corolla - no key in the traditional sense. Has a start button and you insert the whole unit to activate the ignition. Very nice motor though.
The weather at Tromso was generally clear, with some patchy cloud. Had obviously been raining a lot previously. In a spirit of exploration, and at Andrew's suggestion, I drove through the tunnel instead of the narrow bridge to the mainland. This proved a fine alternative and Mike will be pleased to learn that there is no toll. We made it to the supermarket with 8 minutes to spare and so we stocked up on essentials: bread, milk, cheese and tinned fish in tomato sauce!
Andrew decided that he would like to drive to EISCAT and so did so. Once at the radar site we gathered our key cards but found that we had to share due to the number of guests. We then unloaded the car and settled into the Hilton. I have luckily got a room facing the road, just as I like it and Andrew has the room opposite, facing away from the road, just as he likes it. Everybody is happy.
Upon a quick scout of the Hilton we discovered a dearth of mugs for some reason and also some bugger has pinched the telly! Ok so we only get two channels and they are both Norwegian, but come on!
The UHF is still running the common programme (CP2) though it seems to be having problems tonight - power is often on but there is no transmission, though last time I checked this appears to be fine. Spoke to Thomas Ulich who arrived yesterday. He told us that the VHF is unrepaired and is likely to remain so since they cannibalized some parts to fix the UHF. This makes running experiments such as DLETE and ANTII very unfavourable. I may cancel DLETE altogether but I might swap PAMS such that it will run on the UHF, the field aligned capability is somewhat desirable anyway. We shall see.
Tomorrow Andrew and I intend to set up the necessary optics in Mike's hut. Plus I think we will do a main shop. This will give me a chance to grab more cash to pay my room charge up front.
Night for now.
We set off at 6:30 am to Manchester Airport. Having got caught in traffic a little bit we were still in plenty of time for the first flight. No problems to report and we arrived in Copenhagen. We did toy with the idea of attempting to get onto an earlier flight to Oslo but it was somewhat unfeasible due to the crowd at the transfer desk and the time we had to make the flight.
This turned out to be a result as our seats on the flight to Oslo were next to an exit. Lots of leg room :-)
Plus the TV monitors showed the view from an exterior camera on takeoff. Very cool, I had not seen that before.
Things started to fall apart when we reached Oslo. Our flight to Tromso was cancelled which left us with an extra 2 hour wait. We did bump into Mike Rietveld and Brett Isham who were heading upto the site, but they were on an earlier flight with a different airline, I don't know who.
Having boarded the plane (tiny leg space!) I was vaguely amused to see the baggage handler loading our cases onto the aircraft, but was less amused at his deliberate mishandling. Very heavy handed with no reason to be. One slight worry was that I failed to see the photometer case being loaded.
Thankfully the pilot on this leg did it very quickly and we arrived in Tromso at ~08:00 local time. Thankfully the photometer appeared, though quite late after our personal luggage and so I suspect it was loaded early. The guy at the AVIS desk was waiting for us (thanks to Mike Kosch and Ian McCrea) and we got an upgrade to a Toyota Corolla - no key in the traditional sense. Has a start button and you insert the whole unit to activate the ignition. Very nice motor though.
The weather at Tromso was generally clear, with some patchy cloud. Had obviously been raining a lot previously. In a spirit of exploration, and at Andrew's suggestion, I drove through the tunnel instead of the narrow bridge to the mainland. This proved a fine alternative and Mike will be pleased to learn that there is no toll. We made it to the supermarket with 8 minutes to spare and so we stocked up on essentials: bread, milk, cheese and tinned fish in tomato sauce!
Andrew decided that he would like to drive to EISCAT and so did so. Once at the radar site we gathered our key cards but found that we had to share due to the number of guests. We then unloaded the car and settled into the Hilton. I have luckily got a room facing the road, just as I like it and Andrew has the room opposite, facing away from the road, just as he likes it. Everybody is happy.
Upon a quick scout of the Hilton we discovered a dearth of mugs for some reason and also some bugger has pinched the telly! Ok so we only get two channels and they are both Norwegian, but come on!
The UHF is still running the common programme (CP2) though it seems to be having problems tonight - power is often on but there is no transmission, though last time I checked this appears to be fine. Spoke to Thomas Ulich who arrived yesterday. He told us that the VHF is unrepaired and is likely to remain so since they cannibalized some parts to fix the UHF. This makes running experiments such as DLETE and ANTII very unfavourable. I may cancel DLETE altogether but I might swap PAMS such that it will run on the UHF, the field aligned capability is somewhat desirable anyway. We shall see.
Tomorrow Andrew and I intend to set up the necessary optics in Mike's hut. Plus I think we will do a main shop. This will give me a chance to grab more cash to pay my room charge up front.
Night for now.
posted by Kav at 11:23 pm
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