18 November, 1996

November 18th, 1996

Radio Checks

We stayed up late last night going through a food check list, planning what we will eat in the field for the seven days we are there. So this morning we went back out in the snow giving our equipment a check. This time we blocked the ambient light for our photo's of the shadows. Our results were much much better.

After lunch we went to our cage and pulled everything out. Each field party has a cage at the Berg Field Center where they store all their equipment. We had already practiced setting up the tents, so we did an inventory and looked through everything, making sure we knew how to use everything we had. We checked zippers on sleeping bags and that kind of thing as well.

At three, we went to collect and test our radios. After a half hour in Mac Elec. shop, we borrowed a van and took them out on the road to Willy field. We set everything up and discovered that the memory batteries in the radio were apparently bad. Although we could set the frequency manually and raise MacOps in Mcmurdo, we will go to the shop tomorrow to ask about it. We also had a faulty cord to connect the solar panel.

After dinner, with most things done, we took it easy. In bed early tonight, ready to start going through samples when Dr. Braaten returns from AGO2, at the South Pole.