NOPP P.I. Meeting Minutes
September 8, 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),

Absent: Hartley Hoskins (WHOI), David Mountain (NMFS), Gary Williams (Clearwater Inst.), Peter Wiebe (WHOI)

A meeting of the investigators was held September 8, 1999 at the MIT/Sea Grant Office. The meeting began at 10:10am.

Ann distributed an agenda.

Updates

Cliff

Cliff reported that all hardware was assembled. The purchased computer is causing Ken relatively few problems as he transfers the software. He and Ken will visit the Susan & Caitlyn shortly to begin planning for the installation.

Cliff asked whether anyone from the project would participate in the Gloucester Fish Forum on Sept. 17th. Apparently no one has been invited. Discussion from Rollie and Craig indicated that the Forum is not well organized. Also, the topic this year may not be appropriate. Someone should track this for next year. Craig

Craig talked about plans for meetings to decide priorities for collaborative research projects to be funded by the FY99 $5M and the hoped-for FY00 $8M appropriated or to-be-appropriated via NMFS, with the assistance of Sen. Kennedy (MA). They want NAMA to select 3 to 5 priorities and elaborate how to get the fishing vessels included.

[Note added by Ann after the fact: We need to be sure that we, as leaders of the Northeast Consortium, don't get caught up in politics. NH Sen Gregg will help fund ~$3.5M to the current NOPP partners for continued collaborative projects. However, things become difficult if we are also seen to be working closely with Kennedy's office ON THE SAME PROJECT IDEA. Let's be sure to minimize confusion and overlap.]

Kevin Chu (NMFS) contacted Craig to talk. They will meet the end of September.

Craig discussed the fishing regulations that he has, and the differences between "fleet days" and "individual days."

Bob

Bob reviewed the problems he had with Hiway Technologies, the web serving vendor for the Portland Fish Exchange. They are not willing to add an alias to their web configuration file. It was suggested that they be replaced by another vendor; this is an option, but only after the multi-month contract is over. In the meantime, Bob will use computing resources at WHOI. Dave suggested he contact Jeff Allsup at WHOI (x2221) and ask about his positive experiences with VA Research's inexpensive Linux server.

Bob said he was about to purchase his central server, but was waiting for an additional quote.

Software Demonstration

Ken provided a demonstration of the current version of the WheelHouse program on his development machine, a Cyber Research Inc. STC PC running windows 98. This weather resistant, $4500, PC has an integrated monitor and system box and occupies a minimum of space. The consensus was that this unit would work well on a boat. Ken and Craig will make the final decision shortly on whether this will be the deployment PC of choice.

Ken stepped through several of the WheelHouse data entry windows. The following suggestions were made:

Hardware and Software Installation on the F/V Susan & Caitlyn

Cliff, Ken and maybe Gary will visit the F/V Susan & Caitlyn on Monday, September 20, 1999 at 11:00am to review and resolve the PC and instrument installation issues with Craig. The boat is located at 400 Commercial Street, Portland. The boat number is 207-468-2253 and the truck number is 207-468-2254.

Ann reported that Gary would be ready to integrate his instruments by mid-October. Gary has a mockup running now (but without radio link) and could provide what he has to Ken now for integration testing. Ken will contact Gary and will go to Clearwater Instruments to test out his software. Ann thought that Gary expected his instruments to go to MIT for testing. Ken will check into this.

The goal is to have a functioning demonstration at the October 6th meeting including "data values" from Gary's sensors. The software priorities are as follows and in the following order:

  1. Satellite communications / data communications

  2. Sensor integration

  3. User data entry screens (GUI's) operational

  4. Visual display of data

Ken and Cliff will review the component costs of the computer system and get the figures to Ann in preparation for determining how much funds are available for a second and possible third demonstration system to be installed on other fishing vessels. Budgets from all others concerned regarding cost for additional vessel system were requested:

Hardware installation could begin immediately after the October 6th meeting date if not sooner. (Craig said that some of the work could begin immediately after they meet on September 20th.)

We agreed to an October 15th target date for beginning the field demonstration. We also agreed on a November 1st "drop dead" date for a working system, installed on the F/V Susan & Caitlyn, capable of collecting, storing, and telemetering data.

Fishing Permit

Ann and Rollie will look into getting an experimental fishing permit to facilitate the system testing at sea.

Project Name and Logos

We proposed to call the project FleetLink and the to call the system software WheelHouse. Peter was "volunteered" to prepare a logo for FleetLink and Ann offered to arrange for patch, cap, and shirt preparations.

The next meeting will be on Wednesday, October 6, 1999 at the MIT.

The meeting adjourned at about 3:15pm.

Submitted by: R. Groman
Original: September 15, 1999