As most people would know now, there was a big storm on Saturday, which also hit the Ardmore area. There was even a picture on the NZ Herald of a couple of light aircraft being flipped over from the wind in the Ardmore airport. I was actually planning on going out there that day to look into changing some things with the equipment to see if it improves the detection of signals, but needless to say, the weather changed my plans. Since then, I haven’t been able to remotely access the computer, so I was left in the dark for the rest of the weekend about whether there was any damage to my antenna or any of the other equipment.

Taken from the NZ Herald article
Ardmore Airport. Photo / Matt Archer

After my classes on Monday, I made the decision to go there to see if everything was okay. Not knowing if my antenna was still in one piece stressed me out, so I needed to see for myself if there was any damage, calm my thoughts and decide what my next step should be. Luckily, everything seemed to be working and the antenna is still in its place! However, there was a problem with the computer and internet access, because the storm caused a power cut which lasted a few hours, and the back-up power source for the internet ran out of battery during that time, so it didn’t start up again after the power came back on. I restarted it, but I still couldn’t manage to access the computer remotely from my laptop.

I sent an email to the person who helped me set up the computer in the first place and hopefully he’ll be able to find some time over the next couple of days to go there and help me fix the problem.

I’ve been thrown off a little bit by the storm, but I couldn’t predict something like this. I just have to be positive and hope that although it’s a little set back, it seems to be something that can be fixed quickly and easily, so I’m hopefully still on track and will have everything going to plan soon!