The deployment team has successfully mounted the first RICE/IceCube/NARC Digital
Radio Module (DRM) to an IceCube cable. IceCube goes down to 2500m
into the ice; our module will be at 1400m.
Outside there is a brutal
wind and -45F windchill (note snow on the floor), but things go well
inside.
Each DRM has 4 antennas and high-sensitivity amplifier modules which
are placed in high-pressure modules. The copper antenna is just
heading into the hole.
Three of us on the design and development team for this project participated
in deployment: Albrecht Karle (IceCube, University of Wisconsin),
Hagar Landsman (IceCube, University of Wisconsin), and Ken Ratzlaff
(Kansas). We are pleased to see the fruits of a year's labor being
deployed.
The DRM is being lowered into the hole in the ice at the South Pole.
One of the amplifier pressure vessels and antennas being lowered
into the ice.
We had to test the DRMs, and our transportation that day was this
sled pulled by snowmobile. The DRM had to be carefully balanced so
as not to damage the points of penetration into the glass pressure
vessel.
