The IPTDS Subcommittee held a meeting on April 5, 2022. The meeting notes have been published and are available to view in the PTAGIS Document Library. The attendees introduced themselves for the benefit of several new members and shared information about their organizations activities and plans related to managing or installing interrogation sites.
Gabriel Brooks gave an update activities and plans for the NOAA R&D project. Of particular interest to instream site operators is the upcoming release of a new multiplexing transceiver from Biomark. The IS1001-Mux is intended as a replacement for the original mux, the Destron Fearing FS1001M. It has a target price range of $5,000 - $7,000 and the capability to power six antennas with a 23-25 inch read range on a 100 foot cable. Two production units will be available soon for field testing and Gabe is looking for volunteers to help with that process. Contact him at gabriel.brooks@noaa.gov if you are interested.
The flexible antenna array that is operated in tandem with the trawl interrogation site (TWX) in the lower Columbia River will be operated primarily to gather as many detections as possible during the 2022 season. After the season is over, they will be testing several options to help improve noise and deployment. The original pile dike interrogation site (PD7) was reinstalled in April with new batteries, communication equipment and antennas. A new pile dike site will be installed nearby on a small pontoon with solar power. The R&D project also worked on power supplies for the Lower Granite Dam Spillway site (GRS) and conducted a live fish test to measure detection efficiency.
John Tenney gave an update on PTAGIS activities and plans focusing on those related to instream interrogation sites. New software, called I5, was released in February and is intended to replace PIFF and PIFF2. It allows users to connect directly to transceivers, download stored data, review/edit the data, create a file and submit that file to PTAGIS. M5 is the new real-time interrogation data collection software and will be released to the public in May 2022. This is a direct replacement for MiniMon and runs on 64 bit Windows 10/11 or LINUX ARM 64 (Raspberry Pi). Several members of the subcommittee agreed to work with John on testing M5 operations on a Raspberry Pi in the field and writing up an SOP for getting it set up. PTAGIS will be retiring MiniMon, the MiniMon file format, and file submissions from email and FTP at the end of the year, so all site operators are encouraged to convert to using I5 or M5 in the next few months. I5 can be downloaded here right now, and M5 will be available for download sometime in May.
Last year the subcommittee completed a new site diagram standard and will be requesting that all site stewards upload diagrams for existing sites using the new standard. PTAGIS is working on a web page to be available on the dashboard to streamline this process. PTAGIS is also working on a page to request new interrogation sites.
One subcommittee member brought up the topic of potentially obfuscating the locations of instream sites to help prevent theft and vandalism. PTAGIS will review potential solutions for this and bring them back to the subcommittee who will then decide if they want to recommend a solution to the PTSC for review and a final decision. If you have any input on the matter, please contact us.
Gabriel Brooks agreed to remain the subcommittee chair for 2022 and Carley Simpson volunteered to be co-chair.