I'm aware that there was some kind of brief interruption in the St. Croix data feed when you wrote this but I think it's been mostly online since then. It continues to drop transmissions overnight (which may be indicative of battery failure) -- but only sometimes. So I'm not sure if we know the whole story of what's going on with the power systems at this station. I'm attaching a more recent graph of station power levels, where you can see that power levels are falling abnormally low, below 12V, except when they, well, aren't.
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| Battery voltages plotted against Julian Day, 2013, through September 13th. Click on this picture to see a larger version. |
Anyhow I would encourage you to go ahead and do the September maintenance visit whenever you can.
About the CTD -- FedEx has dropped the ball so completely on this lost package that I'm almost speechless. They promise updates whenever I call but the last time they initiated any kind of contact with me was August 20th. But I kept them on the phone a good long time this morning and was given repeated promises that they would update me once more within 24 hours, so we'll see. I also sent them a series of photos I've taken of a similar CTD so hopefully those will help their lost+found department in their search.
I will let you know if I hear more about the missing CTD, and please do continue to send me your comments about the station's data feed if you notice something of interest. I do appreciate your attention and enthusiasm for the health and operation of the station.
(signed)
Mike Jankulak