Installing the Land Cable

Chris Hoyt, University of Washington OOI Field Operations Manager reports on the land cable installation activities at the OOI Shore Station in Pacific City, Oregon:

It's an exciting time in Pacific City, and the shore station is a beehive of activity. Both power cables have been pulled through the manhole-duct system from the beach manhole to the shore station cable vault, and the fiber-optic cable is being pulled through today.

The Power Feed Equipment* installation is in full swing, with three of the seven PFE cabinets bolted down and fastened together. The Uninterruptible Power Suplly** battery cabinet, battery charger, and transformer are mounted to the floor, and three electricians are on-site installing conduit and cabling between the various components that provide input power to the PFE.

The Submarine Line Terminal Equipment*** was delivered yesterday, unpacking began first thing this morning, and the SLTE installation is underway. Duct is now being installed to facilitate the installation of fiber optic cable between the vault and SLTE, and the element management workstation is being set up.

And, of course, it's all proceeding at the speed of light.

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*The PFE powers all of the undersea nodes and science-gathering devices, as well as the optical line amplifiers on the submarine fiber-optic cables.

**The UPS for the PFE is a large battery power source that ensures continuous operation of the PFE when commercial power is lost and up until the backup diesel generators assume the building load.

***The SLTE consists of Transmission Terminal Equipment with multi-channel transmission capability for transmitting data to and from the undersea observatory nodes, a Line Monitoring System to monitor the health of the fiber optic lines and locate cable faults, and an Element Management System that will be used to monitor optical line performance and amplifier status.