Today I performed a suite of tests at another more hospitable location on the volcano.

ERA

The BGAN was setup at a station on the volcano named Comalito that provided excellent shelter from the sun and wind.

The same setup of equipment was performed and as before in the hotel I was able to connect to the server to see newly added images and connect to the EDIMax camera. And as usual the first results that I will publish is the jperf/iperf and ping tests.

A ping test was performed using the web address http://bbc.co.uk as the target address.

Followed by four tests, two using jperf and two using iperf, the results of the jperf test are detailed below.

And the same test using iperf.

In addition to these tests I tried a VOIP test with Trevor using my iPhone as a device to connect to the Asterisk server. Although Trevor was able to hear me I was unable to make any sense of what he was saying apart from the occasional broken sentence. For the most part his voice came across as a distorted robot/synthesised voice.

It was odd as when we tried using Skype with me connected on the ASUS I could hear Trevor as if he was in the next room, well in fact sitting in the same room, his voice was crystal clear. However he was unable to hear me at all? All connections at my end were checked and appeared good.

Trevor then attempted to connect to the EDIMax but was unable to, which was a surprise as the BGAN has locked onto 4 satellites and a signal strength of 54.9. Trevor in the end cancelled his attempt as he received no video back to the UK.

iPhone

Today there was no real work done on the iPhone apart from reading up on the link Kevin sent me to investigate the caching of maps. The application is still a viable concept especially if the map issue can be resolved.

There are numerous protective cases and complete enclosures that can be used with the iPhone to protect it from the environment and as a way to store readings etc electronically means it should be considered as a possible field tool.

I am watching the researchers as I type manually entering their days readings into spreadsheets before they can being to analyse and make sense of the recorded data. With the iPhone storing and allowing for the export of data would save them a considerable amount of time!

Personal

My immunity to the poverty that reigns here has yet to materialise, even though some of the well travelled volunteers say it will come with time?

It is sad to see how poor some people are but in some ways there is some possibility that they could change in some way the direction of their lives or environment. The animals however have no such choice! Being a dog owner I still find it upsetting to see starving dogs wondering the streets for scraps. Seeing horses used to pull carts as taxis with their rib cages visible in relentless heat seems cruel to me. There is nothing I can do to help these animals, what can I do? The people here seem oblivious to it just as they are oblivious to the fact that if they cared for their horses they would live longer!

When out for our evening meal an deaf and dumb man approached us to offer his service to make origami models for a believe it or not, 30 cents!

He did well from our table as Sam bought a horse and I bought two elephants and a big star globe (the thing he is making in the photo) for Hazel and we paid him well over the odds to be kind.

The evening was very relaxing and fun which helped the staff relax after a hard week. Six volunteers chose to go off on a trek of their own for the weekend and four left for the airport to return home. Only one volunteer remained, but in essence it was a staff chill out period. Having experienced the work the staff (researchers) perform here they deserve every minute of chill out time they get!

After dinner back to the hotel and early to bed.