The final tile antenna

Following on from last night's report, here are some photographs of the final work done on the tile installation. Firstly, we have a photograph of the damaged sections of the tile. These all needed to be removed and replaced with spare parts that we had from our stock (leftovers from the destructive testing last winter).


With the repair work done, we fitted the tile ahead of the rapidly deteriorating weather. If this next photograph looks bad, I can assure you it got a LOT worse.


There are no photographs of the final tile being put on the frameset. The conditions were so poor that we needed every pair of hands at work to ensure that the deployment was a success. After all, it is better to have a unrecorded moment of triumph, rather than a photo record of the tile that blew away!

And it was, indeed, a success. With all tiles deployed and secured, we took this photograph of the build team who were present on the day:

From left to right, in the rain, they are: Derek Mckay‐Bukowski, Marko Kauranen, Santtu Rantakokko, Johannes Turunen, Mikko Tilja, Jussi Paulamäki, Stuart Keenan, Markku Postila, Pertti Nissinen, Rauno Oikarainen and Eero Rantakokko. The team is standing in front of antennas H42 (left) and H31, the latter of which was the final tile that we placed.

To the team here, plus those were worked on the site on earlier tile installations, those from ASTRON and SGO who helped with the planning, our contractors and logistics companies and everyone else who worked hard to get us this far (and to schedule too)... thank you! We really appreciate it.

Although this marks a significant step in the construction, we still have a lot of additional work to go (sorry, team!). But the good news is that there is still much more to be posted on this web log. The pace will keep up with multiple posts per day for some time yet as we tackle the next stage of the project. Stay tuned.