A 6m galvanized pole has been deployed in the eastern part of the lagoon in behind
Seabird Islet. The Relay Pole has three functions. The first is to propagate the wireless
network through which the buoys talk and so it forms part of the network backbone
talking directly to Relay-Pole 1. The second function is that a vaisala WXT520 weather
station is mounted on the top and so this pole provides above water met observations.
These include air temperature, humidity, air pressure, wind speed and direction and
rainfall. The third function is that a sensor string is attached to the pole, the
sensor string runs through a channel in Seabird Islet across the exposed seaward reef
flat to the reef crest and then down the reef slope to around 20m. This gives a profile
down the reef slope and gives readings of the water coming onto the reef complex.
The pole has two Campbell Scientific loggers (one for the weather station, one for
the sensors), spread-spectrum radio and 2.4/5 GHz 802.11 wireless for communicating
with the base station (located at the workshop near the Research Station). The sensor
string as of August 2010 has a SeaBird SBE37 at the end of the sensor string (around
230m out from the pole), and two SeaBird SBE39's located at teh reef crest and down
at the start of the reef slope.
