We conducted the maintenance of 14 seismic stations distributed in Kumamoto Pref. and the array at Kirishima volcano, which consists of 13 seismometers, from October 3 to 4.
The essential operation of the maintenance was data collection and battery replacement. It was necessary to replace the seismometer or data logger at some stations.
Even the battery replacement is hard work since each station has 24 size-D batteries.
Prof. Matumoto, Assoc. Prof. Emoto, Uchida, a technical staff and three students Suzuki (M2), Tasa (M1) and Kono (B4) were attended to this maintenance. In addition, four B3 students Shigematsu, Nakamura, Nagayama and Hirata assisted the maintenance.
It took a long time to fix some stations’ cable-cutting and other unplanned troubles. It is crucial to make adequate preparation by expecting unexpected issues.
Most seismic stations are located in the mountain to minimize the noise related to human activity. We encountered hornets, spiders, centipedes, and ants, who were not our friends.