Absent: Ken Ekstrom (MIT), Hartley Hoskins (WHOI), David Mountain (NMFS),
Guests: David McCarron (Mass. Div. of Marine Fisheries) Massachusetts Fish Auction Project
A meeting of the investigators was held March 31, 1999 at Clearwater Instrumentation, Inc. The meeting began at 10:00am.
Ann distributed an agenda.
Ann and Peter
Fish forum feedback - two newpaper articles in the works)
Ann
Ann received calls from ISOMAR and reports of Tom Houston's complaints about
NOPP funding to our project.
Craig
NEFMC meeting: Rollie and Craig will ask Council members
whether NOPP presentation is useful; Cliff will ask the Habitat
Committee of the Committee also.
Cliff
Ken is making progress on the software; this effort is on track.
Gary
Gary reported that the prototype boards for sensor interfaces will be
ready by May; and finish gear-based sensor and transceiver ready by June/July.
Peter
Peter agreed to ask about obtaining an Experimental Fisheries Permit for
Craig to be able to take fish during the demo when Peter is working on a
neighboring ship.
Charting Software
We discussed again the issue of how and
whether to integrate a charting program, such as Capt'n, MapTech,
WinPlot, etc. into our software. Peter felt that the Capt'n
software provided many nice features, although did seem to have a
bug in it that caused his system (Windows 95) to hang when left to
run for long periods of time. Craig agreed that several fishermen
like and usesimilar software. However, integrating our software
with each of these packages would be a large project. We agreed
that we would attempt to integrate our software with one of the
packages. Garry, who leaves for sea one week from Saturday will
evaluate several packages. Peter will transfer his Capt'n license
to him during the evaluation, and Gary (or Peter?) will buy a copy
of MapTech for Gary's evaluation as well.
Bob
Bob reported that the internet service provider (ISP) for the Portland Fish Exchange,
CI Host, is willing to allow the necessary scripts and programs to be installed
on their server to enable the Portland Fish Exchange to be a data server for our
project. However, questions still remain about whether security issues can be
properly addressed and whether there would be enough (inexpensive) disk storage
for the project. Bob contacted Wendy and Bruce at the Portland Fish Exchange
to set up a meeting with them about this and related issues. Craig mentioned
that the ISP may be replaced soon.
Bob also reported that he contacted COMSAT about signing up our Inmarsat-C transceiver for services. Their current regular rate it $0.008125 per character, or $0.26 for 32 characters. Stephen Lycett at COMSAT suggested that the INMARSAT-B transceiver (~60K baud) might turn out to be less expensive for our needs since transmitting gif images over the 600 baud Inmarsat-C satellite would cost about $30 and take some time. However, the INMARSAT-B transceiver is about six times as expensive as the the -C transceiver. If we build our software to isolate the data communications details, then we can change the communications method later on as needed.
| May | prototype boards for sensor interfaces |
| June/July | finish gear-based sensor; transceiver |
| June/July | operational software, user interface |
| June/July | bench testing at Clearwater; MIT buys PC for bench testing and demo |
| July/August | vessel installation |
| August | demo begins; perhaps coordinated with Peter's two ship cruise 10-15 Aug. |
The next meeting will be May 11, 1999 at the University of New Hampshire.
The meeting adjourned at approximately 3:30pm.
Joe shared his proposed presentation viewgraphs with us which shares the same requirements, electronic features, and system block diagram as our program's, but with, prehaps, a different emphasis. Joe plans to take his proposal and look for his own funding.
The group felt that the software and integration issues were the hard part of the project whereas Joe felt that ruggedized, marine grade equipment that could operate for 10 years was the focus.
We discussed possible working arrangements but agreed that we were not going to be able to reach any mutually agreeable middle ground. Joe decided to withdraw from the project, without his (remaining?) funding. Ann suggested that Joe contact us again in the summer to see whether there were any areas of collaboration possible (such as computer ruggedization by Alphatron) since by then we would have our demonstration equipment operational. Joe suggested that his brother, Sammy, work with us to maintain ties with the Gloucester Fish Exchange.
Ann will draft a letter on the separation terms and pass them out to the group for comments before sending it to Joe.
His system interfaces with the FoxPro-based systems in use at the exchange. It has automatic triggers within it so that the necessary data are sent to his Oracle server whenever they are entered in the FoxPro system. Local users need not take any separate actions to update his server.
When asked if he felt that his network-based system would open up the exchanges to network purchasing, he didnt' think so. People still need to look, smell and touch the fish they plan to bid on and buy. He feels his system will provide the basic information necessary for customers (and fishermen) to make good buy and fishing decisions.
Down the road, he feels that this system would have to cover the region, and include Montava (sp?) and Point Judith exchanges, to be really effective.
David summarized the necessary information into four areas as follows:
| Hail | Catch | Landing | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Provided by the fishermen, this is the expectation of what will be caught and when it will land. This is very useful information for the exchange, potention buyers, and fishermen about to go out and fish. | This is what fish are caught in the cod end, was are tossed out, and what will be kept. It's "what's on the deck" after a tow. This is scientific information, and should not be sent to NMFS. |
Estimation of what is in the hold. | Market tally of the landing, the weigh out. Price is also included here and one could add the hours towed and the area(s) towed. |
The focus of David's project is economic development.
We agreed that Gary will have right-of-first-refusal for all jobs left undone by Joe. We will seek an additional partner only if necessary.
Given additional funds made available by Joe's departure, we discussed what additional activities can we now contemplate. The following items were mentioned:
We agreed to discuss these options and opportunities at the next meeting.
The next meeting will be on Tuesday, May 11, 1999 at the University of New Hampshire.
The meeting adjourned at about 3:30pm.