5 December, 2000

FYI answer for 12/04/00

Radio communications are easily affected by magnetic disturbances and sun spot activity, which will sometimes make communications broken and difficult to understand. There is a phonetic alphabet that can be used to ensure that when you say "F" it is not misunderstood as "S". The following is the first half of the phonetic alphabet.

A Alpha B Bravo C Charlie

D Delta E Echo F Foxtrot

G Golf H Hotel I India

J Julia K Kilo L Lima

M Mike

The agenda for today was going to be full. All seven of us were going to divide and conquer some of the work that Katsu really wanted to get done. When I was dressed and opened the hut door to go to breakfast, it was very apparent that nobody was going anywhere right then. It was snowing. There was no hurry to get up and go. I read, walked out to the camera and turned it on so we have had it to watch all day, and I did some computer work. The others did some of the same kinds of inside activities.

I talked the group into helping me with one of today's pictures. Dan, Mike, Cory and Shawn all dressed in different layers to show how the layering of clothes works. They decided the picture needed to be outside for effect. Then we all dressed in our parkas for a our holiday picture, even though we won't be out here on the ice for the holidays.

The snow stopped falling and the wind stopped blowing about 5pm, so we decided to have a late dinner and go dig ice holes around Big Razorback to take some depth measurements. We drilled five different holes about 100 m apart. The ice drill had to go through 2 to 3 meters (6 to 9 feet) of ice to get to where we could lower the weight and let it drop for measurements. The shallowest drop was 2 meters and the deepest drop was 258 meters.

For a snow day we did have the oportunity to get a few things done. It snowed about two inches today. We have our final census planned for tomorrow, so once again we will get a good walking workout and it should make the cracks fun to look for also.

FYI

The following is the second half of the phonetic alphabet that is used to ensure proper ___________ communications.

N________ O Oscar P________

Q Quebec R_______ S Sierra

T Tango U Uniform V Victor

W________ X X-ray Y________

Z Zulu

We are trying to show you the four different layers of clothing we wear out here

Drilling through the seven feet of ice to get to water

Just a little excited for some more snow I think