Day 12 (12 February 2015) in Belem, Brazil

Today is my last day in Brazil. The Belem station is working great, everything looks healthy. I went to the site for a final checkup before I headed on to the airport to catch my flight back home. If my house still survived from the massive snow fall during the last two weeks. 

Another development is the replacement electronics for Petrolina is in Brazil, cleared from the custom office and is heading to its final destination. It will replaced very soon and the Petrolina station will be back on track, hoping the electronics last long this time. 
Finally back home safely. The good news is my house survived the massive snow fall that happened while I was in Brazil. 

Day 11 (11 February 2015) in Belem, Brazil

As I mentioned yesterday, I had received good news from Belem on my way to Belem. However, when I got to my hotel I quickly tried to see the UDP on our website by myself. Unfortunately, it stopped updating at 8:38pm localtime and it was not updating since then. A lot of things rolled around my mind throughout the night. Today, I couldn't wait until the driver comes. He came at 8:30am and we rushed to the site. I went to the room where I put the electronics, and thanks God everything looks healthy. Now, the problem is internet connection. I had to wait until Christian comes. When he came, I told him what happened and it did not take him that long to fix the problem, which was from the campus. I also confirmed that Matt can in deed logged in and be able to grasp the data. Fantastic! Thank you everyone who made this possible.
Finally, I came back to my hotel in the afternoon.    

Day 10 (10 February 2015) in Petrolina, Brazil

Today is my last day in Petrolina, at least according to my current itinerary. We had to go to the site to see the director general of the campus, who were looking for me yesterday. However, since it was a devastating day for my team, we prefer to see him the next day, which today. He is a very nice person, and he gave me an assurance that he will make sure my instrument will be protected. I was asked to prepared a summary document about eh objective of AMBER project and why we deploy two them in Brazil. Luck them, I did produced the document on Sunday night, before the bad situation occurred. When I saw the director general today, he had received a translated (to Portuguese, of course) version from Eurico and he would like to post it on the campus’s website as top news. He asked me to pause a picture with him to support the summary document, which we did. 

 The director general of the institute office (picture of the Brazilian president above) and institute logo at the right!

 Pausing with the director general of the institute!

 Leaving Petrolina for Belem!

We finally left the campus and rushed to the airport to catch my flight to Belem to take care of the pending significant issue there, which is the data flow back to BC. Well! while I was on transit in Recift, Acacio received phone call from Chrstian and asked to speak with me. He said “Endawoke good news, we finished the configuration and the data is now pushing good”, and I asked “how do you know it is pushing?”. His response was more than convincing; he said “we checked your website and it is updating”. Perfect, I immediately texted to Matt and he confirmed right away that he in deed see the UDP coming to our website. However, Matt couldn’t be able to login. It could be firewall issue, which I’ll deal with it tomorrow if it can be accommodated by the campus. Good Job Christian! Thank you so much in deed.

Day 9 (9 February 2015) in Petrolina, Brazil

Today I woke up happily, checked the instrument using cell phone and everything looks perfect and healthy, eat my breakfast and headed to the site to finish up the leftover minor tasks. On our way to the site, we stopped at the shop and bought some accessories that helps us to secure all our cables and electronics. One of the professors brought us mini rack to store our electronics. So far so good. Then, when I get connect, I checked the data flow again and couldn’t update. It just stalled at 8:32AM, which was 20 min before we arrived at the site. I tried different options. Then I disconnect the beagleboard UPS cable and connected to my laptop, the entire system is not responding. Now! Shaking, what went wrong to the system that was perfectly working, confirmed the data flows by BC and UCLA folks. We safely tuned of the power and disconnect all the connection, and we smell something inside. We opened the box and learnt a shocking and devastating situation, i.e., the electronics was burnt through the GPS cable. The question still mysterious to me is why? There was no lightening it was a burning 30+ degree cc temperature weather when it happens. The question “why” still stands, and looking forward to get explanation.

 Burned electronics

Solution? Well! only one and one solution we have to use to get it fixed, i.e., get another electronics from the instrument provider, which is responsible for such extremely short lived failure. I communicated with them and at the time of writing the replacement is already shipped to Brazil. Let’s cross our fingers to a long lasting electronics this time. 

Finally, we packed up, stored other electronics and left the site for the day. In general, today was not a productive day.

Day 8 (8 February 2015) in Petrolina, Brazil

The campus was closed today and they did not allow us to get in. So we decided to see some sites. we drove around to see some sites. We drove about 40km outside Petrolina to visit the famous wine factory, unfortunately it was closed and did not get a chance to get in. However, I had the opportunity to see the beautiful land scape. We then went to shopping, had lunch and shopping around. I wanted to buy the Brazilian national team jersey for my kids, who would like to have different nations' team jersey. Surprisingly, we couldn't find it very easily. Then one young lady instructed us to goto one of the famous sport shop, which we went into but national team jersey was not either. We asked a lady works there if she can direct us it is located, and she told us a surprising story. She said this "we used to have quite a lot of national team jersey in their store but after Brazil surprised the world by losing 7 to 0 to Germany, nobody wants to buy the national team jersey and we took it out of the store". What? What? Humm! is the right way to bring the national team back to the level where it used to be? Anyway, I left it for the readers to comment on it. As to my search, I have to keep looking, otherwise, I'll be in trouble with my kids.

 Beautiful green area on our way to wine company!

 This was the initially planned site for AMBER instrument, 20km away from Petrolina

 Bulls statue outside the wine company main gate! 

 You can decorate your back/front yard with used wine bottles, don't throw it away!

 The wine company main gate!

The temperature is so high, and it so difficult to be outside, and we returned back to our hotel. For dinner, we went out and brought pizza and we enjoyed it with the bottle of wine that we purchased yesterday.
Tomorrow will be my last day in Petrolina and I have to finish up all the leftover tasks. Because, I had to change my flight to go back to Belem and take care of the pending job, which is connection problem.    

Day 7 (7 February 2015) in Petrolina, Brazil

Just got in to the site where I left to run overnight, and found everything is working so nicely. Take a look at the dynamic spectra of the night and this morning. 

 

We are now digging to make the current position of the sensor as its final destination.

 

  Digging is underway and GPS antenna got a Temporary position!

The digging here in Petrolina was really hard. Very dry and rocky. Finally, we did it and made the sensor alignment completed before lunch. I connected the sensor to the Beagleboard and went for lunch. One of the faculty here at the campus, Alexanderia, took us to one of the nearby restaurant known by the name Mandacaru. The food there was so delicious.  

 Sensor at its final position!

 So far this the first wine that I tested since I came to Brazil!

 When we returned back from lunch, most of the outside work was completed. The data flow! Yes! the data flow miraculously got solved. What was the problem? Still not clear for me yet. The good thing is the data start flowing and the real-time UDP is updating on every five seconds (as it is suppose to be) on our website (http://magnetometers.bc.edu/index.php/petrolina). What a successful accomplishment. Just quite few minor task remains that I need to take care before I leave Petrolina for Belem. I've significant task to deal with in Belem, and I decided to go there a few days before I leave Brazil for home. But for now we have a lot to celebrate. Acacio and I joined by two faculty members (Alexanderia and her friend) at Barretus Grill restaurants for dinner. We had a wonderful evening.  

 

AMBER electronics, No computer just UPS and mag electronics!

   

 GPS antenna is fixed and grounded!