Joel has arrived in Kanpur as of the morning of June 5th (local). Alex missed his connection due to poor weather and should arrive the morning of June 6th.
#3, #137 and #83 are are back up on the guesthouse roof (with #158 which was already running). These were run all day on a hot, mostly cloudless day (including in BCLsun mode for several hours). At 4PM, it was still 106F in the shade so it should be a good test for field readiness. These data have been dumped to a PC and will be uploaded shortly.
#158 seems to be working well as well. It was not transmitting because the Vitel battery was at 5.2V. I’ve recharged it and re-started the transmitter which has sent 3 messages so far. The system must not be charging given how it was found on arrival so it would need to be changed out somehow. However, I don’t see alternative charge controller etc. setup here to use instead.
Harish is back from Nainital and Bareilly (with the extra robot he took). The Vitel battery he carried with him was left at Bareilly to facilitate charging and replacement here since battery power has been an issue. At Nainital, the problem was a loose zenith nut and a loose Cimel external battery connector. The system appeared to work normally for him. A few more trips and he’ll have enough frequent driver miles saved up for a free trip to Chitrakoot.
Tomorrow (June 6th): Center overpass planning meeting with Sachi and crew.
