Loading the vehicles

This is going to be a busy week. Today we will set off from Sodankylä Geophysical Observatory for the first full expedition this season to the KAIRA site — the home of LOFAR station FI609.

The pre-trip briefing meeting has now been held, as well as various follow-up discussions and we're now at the 'final-packing stage'.

The van is mostly loaded and all that remains now, is to secure the tooling and shoring timber on the trailer before hitching it up, having some lunch, then setting off. As you can see, there is still a bit of snow piled up, but the ground is mostly clear now. It will be interesting to see what it is like this evening when we reach the KAIRA site... which is over 1½ degrees further north and at higher altitude.

If you are new to this web log (welcome!), then you've picked a great week to start following us. Over the course of the next few days, we will be doing the final site evaluation, dismantling the test tiles, starting ground preparation work and doing some destructive testing.

A description of KAIRA can be found on our project page (also available in Finnish language).