EC Systems - Report from Dave in Sarawak

Hi Dudes, both stations installed and now having a break for a day. Amazing place and friendly people. They have been introducing us to their unique food , water chicken (frog), flying fox (yes the bat), wild boar, goat mud crab, and fish in many different ways washed down with bucket loads of Heineken. It’s all been great, even the bat. The first station went up without a hitch apart from a minor glitch with the net radiometer. The second station was a 1.5 km walk through knee deep peat sludge. Once up the tower a local swarm of honey bees came to visit us at the 10 metre level. I was working with about 100-200 bees sitting on my shirt drinking the sweat out of it. Occasionally they would get inside the shirt and that’s when I was stung (6 time in all). The 2nd tower is functioning - the shorter SDM cable worked a treat. Dave.

A Comparison of Campbell Scientific's Top Selling Data Loggers

This video serves as an introduction to our new generation of dataloggers; it describes the number and types of channels which are available for measurement, which communication protocols are supported and relative strengths of each type of data logger. For those who have not dealt with Campbell Scientific data loggers before, this video will give a good idea of what is available and which model might be most appropriate for your application.

Water Management Challenges in Australia

Accurate and reliable monitoring of Australia’s water resources has never been more critical. In recent years, a significant amount of effort and resources have been committed, by both government and private entities, to the management of Australia’s natural resources, predominantly water.

Discussions of desalination plants and buy-back of irrigation licenses have been hot political topics and the respective federal governments have committed large sums of money to better understand the national water budget and manage its use.

Part of this process includes the publication of a list of organizations with a data reporting requirement. These organizations are generally water resource management authorities who monitor and manage water usage in a specific area.

Monitoring the natural resources of the country has many hurdles to overcome, one of which is the logistical issues involved in having to monitor sites that are in remote and challenging locations. Ensuring the accuracy of the data that is recorded at these sites is another significant challenge and is one that often can’t easily be corrected if the measurements aren’t done well initially. Site conditions such as temperature extremes, power limitations and telemetry availability all contribute to making the delivery of quality data more difficult.

For example a site in a deep valley (where many rivers tend to be) often don’t receive many hours of effective solar panel charging weather in a day. Similarly, these sites are notoriously difficult to get telemetry coverage due to the physical obstructions and the angles at which some antennas must be mounted.

CSA manufacture a range of rugged data loggers that are designed with these conditions in mind. Their low power design ensures that a site with a limited or no access to power is not a reason to exclude the site from the monitoring scheme. Similarly, the data loggers are designed to operate accurately over a wide temperature range to cope with the most demanding environmental conditions.

The CR800, CR850 and CR1000 data loggers have been widely used in hydrological and hydrographic applications throughout Australia and many other countries throughout the world. Their flexibility and their ability to perform complex tasks with ease provide peace of mind for both system designers and field operators.

The ability for these data loggers to be customized and reconfigured allows the same hardware to be used at all sites in a network with a minimal amount of fuss. The same logger can be configured with a radio, a cell phone, a satellite phone, cable connections or combinations of these to suit the application. Looking for a SCADA interface? These data loggers support a number of open protocols to provide easy interfacing to PLC’s or SCADA monitoring systems.

The CRBasic programming language provides the tools required to build custom applications or to support special protocols. The Campbell Scientific data loggers support all commonly used sensor types and telemetry options, which can often prove to be a very cost-effective solution when compared to another device such as a PLC with all the various analog measurement cards.

Laksa and Tigers in Sarawak

Steve Bailey and Dave Boadle from Campbell Scientific Australia had a recent trip to Kuching in Sarawak to exhibit at the Asia 2010 Conference - Water Resources and Renewable Energy Development in Asia.

The visit to Kuching was a pleasant surprise as it is one of those hidden gems that we had never heard of prior to visiting. The city was relaxed yet modern, very neat and well maintained and the general population were amongst the most friendly and accommodating that I have seen in all of my SE Asian travels. I would thoroughly recommend it as a place to visit if you haven’t already done so.

A must-do in Sarawak is to have the local delicacy of Sarawak laksa – usually for breakfast. Unlike the tamarind flavoured assam laksa or the more common Singapore laksa, Sarawak laksa has a cardamom flavour without the tang of tamarind. We took every opportunity to sample this and other delicacies at various local eateries around the city. A good bowl of laksa or noodles can be purchased for around AU$2 and Singapore Tiger beer for a similar price.

The exhibition, held at the fantastic Borneo International Convention Centre in Kuching, ran for two days and it was good as always to meet new and existing clients and to catch up with fellow exhibitors, particularly those who use and recommend Campbell Scientific products. The conference dinner was held an hour’s drive from the city centre at the Sarawak Cultural Village where we experienced local cuisine, musical entertainment, dancing displays and even an exhibition of blow-pipe shooting.

The Asia 2010 Conference was a successful trip and other than the work aspect, Sarawak was a great place to visit.

Steve Bailey - CEO Campbell Scientific Australia

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