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<br />basin. You can also see a satellite there. Right now I <br />will stick to the data collection platform itself. This <br />is a site in Golden, Colorado just downstream from <br />the Coors Brewery, another beneficial use of the water <br />in the basin. On top of the gauge house there is a <br />tipping bucket rain gauge and antenna pointed to. <br />wards a stationery satellite. <br /> <br />This might be a little bit more familiar site. This is <br />at Nebraska City. In the gauge house there is a variety <br />of equipment. The most exciting part, at least for the <br />water control managers, is this little yellow box. It <br />doesn't look very exciting, it's only 12 x 12 x 5 inches <br />deep, but it's really a little microcomputer. One part <br />of that device sends the signal out and the other part <br />has intelligence that accepts computer programming. <br />The user of the system can set this devise up to collect <br />data as often as he wants. Ours are set up in two modes <br />to collect data every few minutes, but only send the <br />values in a self-time mode on one channel every four <br />hours. We get a one minute period, every four hours, <br />to send this information back. So if there's not much <br />going on, our data can be as old as four hours. The <br />other side of the platform, and kind of an exciting side, <br />is the event driven side which can actually send in- <br />formation on a different channel; but the user can <br />program in, such as a stage rise of one foot. that would <br />cause data to he sent immediately. Therefore, during <br />times when the river is changing rapidly, you can get <br />information as often as every two minutes from the <br />site. The only thing is, the sites compete for each other <br />and there can be collisions and we can lose a little <br />information on that channel. That's about as detailed <br />as I want to get. Most of the data collection platforms <br />are located below Gavins Point along the major tri- <br />butaries primarily in the Kansas City District because <br />of additional rainfall occurring down there. Others oc- <br />cur in the Denver area, because of the f1ashf1ood po- <br />tential, and at the major hot spots in the hasin as far <br />as problems go, and other major tributaries. Also, even <br />though we say the system has 219 sites, we have added <br />a few sites as we discovered new critical areas that we <br />needed to monitor. <br /> <br />The second component in the system are the sat- <br />ellites themselves. They are managed by the National <br />Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. One of <br />their satellites failed last year when it was launched <br />on one of the Delta rockets they were having so much <br />trouble with. It was kind of a critical piece, but bas- <br />ically, the system consists of three satellites. An east <br />and a west satellite, we use the west, and a central <br />satellite that's a spare. The only function of that sat- <br />ellite is to increase the signal strength and send it back <br /> <br />38 <br /> <br />down. It also serves as a constant point at which all <br />the field sites can be pointed. That's all I would like <br />to discuss about the satellite. <br /> <br />The third component in the system is a direct read- <br />out ground station or a receiving station. The one here <br />is located on the downtown Omaha Federal Building. <br />The dish is a little bigger and heavier duty than some <br />you see. It is on top of the downtown Omaha Federal <br />Building. These are what's called demodulators. They <br />actually watch the various channels the information <br />comes in on. I didn't allude to it earlier, but we also <br />monitor channels from a similar system the State of <br />Colorado has, and we also collect information from <br />the Bureau of Reclamation sites and use that in our <br />day-to-day operations as well.- <br /> <br />Once the data hits the satellite, it can be shared hy <br />anyone as long as you know what's being sent. So there <br />is a lot of coordination that goes along there as far as <br />the site and the parameters that are measured at the <br />site. All this information goes into a computer system <br />located there. Software in the computer system is <br />state-of-the-art. It checks the data as far as being rea- <br />sonable. After it checks the data it has thresholds that <br />the users can set so you could actually get a warning <br />call at work or at home if certain values are exceeded. <br />It also has a warning capability. We first used it for <br />some least tern tests last summer, and it worked quite <br />well. The other thing that happens at the ground sta- <br />tion is all our information is stored there. It is also <br />sent to a larger computer located at Portland, Oregon <br />operated by the Corps of Engineers' Pacific Division. <br />That's where all our modeling is really performed, not <br />locally in the smaller computer. <br /> <br />Because the information is so vital to our operation, <br />we also provide a backup system. The Bureau of Rec- <br />lamation in Boise, Idaho, which is depicted in the <br />lower left hand corner, collects all the same infor- <br />mation and also sends it on to the mainframe or large <br />computer located in Portland, Oregon. So even if our <br />site is down, the information is still getting to the main <br />computer where we can run simulation models. <br /> <br />The type of data we need to have and collect through <br />this system-water levels, stage and elevation, precip- <br />itation, rainfall and snow, air and water temperature, <br />wind speed and direction, water quality, pH, dissolved <br />oxygen, specific conductants-there are other param- <br />eters we would like to have, but the sensors don't lend <br />themselves to the easy collection of that data. The new, <br />hot area of interest is a geotechnical area where sen- <br />sors inside the dam and various other devises are used <br />