December 31st, 2007 andrea
Icestock is the annual music festival at McMurdo, when the whole town comes out to listen to live music and eat chili, no matter what the conditions. This year, despite a bit of snow and cold temperatures, there was quite a crowd. Much fun was to be had, but the quality of the chili was no laughing matter, as evidenced by this short clip:
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December 31st, 2007 andrea
As the date of Sonic Antarctica gets closer, we’re feverishly editing recordings from the Sound Walkabout a couple of days ago. In this series of excerpts from a sound recording by Anne Dalvera, you can hear her describing the setting around town as she walks and briefly talking about the soundscape with Patricia Jackson:
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December 27th, 2007 andrea
Tonight in preparation for the Sonic Antarctica Concert on January 7th, Tia and I hosted a phonography workshop/soundwalk around McMurdo. We brought a variety of microphones and recording devices for people to experiment with and visited a wide range of sound environments, from the waste-water treatment plant to radarsat (aka the golf-ball – thanks to Nik Sinkola for opening it up for us!)
It seems to me that McMurdo residents have a high sensitivity to sound, in part I think because listening (radio communications, heavy machinery and vehicles, helicopters, etc.) is such an important part of living down here. You can see more photos of the walkabout by clicking on the thumbnail in this post.
This is a recording by Dr. John Mitchell from the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Laboratory for High Energy Astrophysics. An accomplished photographer, Dr. Mitchell is trying out the mp3 recorder and binaural microphone for the first time, you can hear the two of us talking briefly at the end of the recording:
December 26th, 2007 andrea
Filling up the balloon was loud. Painfully, mind-numbingly, and gloriously, worth-staying-up-all-night-loud. And, despite my default all-access pass, I still got a little too up close and personal. In this recording of the beginning of the inflation, you can hear me walking right up to the balloon and (sigh), being asked to step back.
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December 26th, 2007 andrea
Yesterday was my last chance to view a Long Duration Balloon launch at Wilie Field. Two launches had already happened while I was at the pole and in the Dry Valleys, so I was especially hoping to see this last one. An attempt at launching the ATIC payload was planned for 8PM last night (see http://www.nsbf.nasa.gov/antarctica/ice0708.htm for more details on all three experiments).
However, due to weather conditions, which need to be perfect, the balloon didn’t launch until 3AM. I stuck it out and the overcast weather and late hour gave me the benefit of being one of only two observers, and lots of access to recording. The entire experience was a blast. There was lots of time to joke around with the launch crew, and talk with the meteorology group (including Anne Dalvera who was sending up pibals – short for ‘pilot balloons’ – every half-hour) and the physicists running the experiments.
The following recordings are all binaural (yup, headphones!) and are only about 2 or 3 minutes max. First is a recording of downtime in the LDB galley. In it you can hear the voice of Kevin Yuill on the radio giving his weather observation report from the tower:
Phil Austin shown here was coordinating the entire production and generously spent time taking me through the process. Here is a recording of Phil right before the launch explaining what will happen:
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