NOPP P.I. Meeting Minutes
February 16, 1999

Present: Rollie Barnaby (UNH), Ann Bucklin, chair ( UNH), Ken Ekstrom (MIT), Cliff Goudey (MIT Sea Grant), Bob Groman (WHOI), Dave Hosom (WHOI), Craig Pendleton (NAMA - Portland Fish Exchange), Peter Wiebe (WHOI), Gary Williams (Clearwater Inst.),

Absent: Hartley Hoskins (WHOI), David Mountain (NMFS), Joe Novello (Alpha-Tron)

Guests: none

A meeting of the investigators was held February 16, 1999 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The meeting began at 10:00am.

Ann distributed an agenda for the meeting and asked Bob to be the meeting recorder.

Call for additional agenda items

Additional agenda items added at the meeting include:

Updates

Ann reported that the Santa Fe ASLO presentation on February 5 went well. The viewgraphs are (or soon will be) on the private web site.

Ann reported that the trouble people are having with gaining access to the funds will be worked out.

Ann spoke with Fred Grassle (Rutgers University) about contributing to their commercial partner and their project to provide frequent weather forecasts for fishermen. He is interested in the New Jersey shelf area and their is a state-funded project. We decided to delay a while before we have a visit with him.

We discussed the further restricting of the fishing grounds (in 1999 and 2000) for cod fishing and the negative impact this will have on the fishermen. Options for the commercial fishermen include buyback, research, etc. Rollie felt that within six months the whole Gulf will be shut down.

On the question about haul-back time (from a previous meeting), Rollie said that it took seven (7) minutes to haul back the net from 75-100 fathoms of water, from the bottom to the surface. It then took a couple of minutes to get the gear on-board. It takes about two to three minutes to set up for the next haul.

Proposal from Joe for LENA-BASE System Development

After the "software meeting" held between Joe, Ken, Bob, and Hartley on Monday, February 8, 1999 (summarized in the System User Interface Specification), Joe wanted to talk with Rollie and Ann. Joe determined that he could not build the hardware to run the software for less than $6,000. Joe then made a proposal via e-mail to Ann (and copied to Rollie) with the subject of "Alphatron role in NOPP project". He would like to build a low cost marine processor that would run software to only handle bottom temperature (Gary's instrument), electronic log book, and communications to the cooperatives.

There is a difference in vision for this project. It is not for the lobster boat, while Joe would like the system to be affordable to all fishermen. There was general agreement that we would like to keep Joe within the project but there are several questions to resolve. We wanted Joe to come to the next meeting with his software partner and discuss his plans. We then need to figure out the budget implications. We also need to let Gloucester identify a boat to use for the demonstation. Rollie agreed to contact the Gloucester Fish Exchange. We also need to buy a PC for but we will wait until after the meeting with Joe. Cliff and Gary will provide an estimate for installation- and hardware connection-related issues. (For example, we will use DB9's from the computer converter box RS232 and the 489 interface. We also discussed the need to establish a new acronym since LENA really belongs to Joe.

Questionnaire

The results of the questionnaire need to be summarized and analyzed. The questionnaires can be passed along to Peter/Bob for data entry and analysis.

Navigation precision

Differential GPS would be preferable if available.

Software Interface (Program Wheelhouse)

We briefly discussed some data directory struction options for the Wheelhouse program. [Editor: my notes say that we agreed to use the same directory structure as on the vessels, but I do not understand the context. Did this have to do with what the on-line data directory structure would be, and to have this structure mirror whatever we use on the vessels so that the fishermen would see a common structure?]

Ken asked to what screen resolution he should program: 800x600 or 1028x768. We decided on the 1028x768 resolution.

We also discussed how best to taylor the program for such things as the species list. We agreed to have this be driven by a data file read in at run-time as opposed to being hard-coded into the program. This would allow the species list to be taylored for each vessel as needed.

We also agreed that the windows should be able to be ajustible in size, and where appropriate, be able to zoom.

The water depth needs to be added to the forms. Whale images may be available from the Center for Coastal Studies, Providence and URI Sea Grant offices. However, we decided to wait on this as well. The "web" based version of the Wheelhouse program will be used at the Fishermen's Forum on March 6. However, it will run "stand-alone" from a portable PC. Our project will have a booth with posters as well.

IMET Hull-mounted SST Sensor

Dave said that the SST sensors need 0.01° sensitivety for WOCE climate people. It needs to be recalibrated every six months. Ann said she would talk to Bob Weller about this requirement. Peter and Dave will look for the funds for this. One SST sensor could be removed from the Clearwater budget.

Engine Operation Sensors

There was a discussion about whether engine operation sensors were wanted and needed. Cliff said that a generic sensor could be built that had an analog to RS232 converter. There was agreement to not have a sensor for the stack temperature as that would require a sensor capable of recording very high temperatures, of order 700°. Gary and Cliff will think about this and get comments from Criag.

The next meeting will be March 31, 1999 at MIT.

The meeting adjourned at 3:30pm.

Submitted by: R. Groman
Original: March 30, 1999