So, I couldn’t help myself. Since it is now officially “mid-April” I thought I’d send an email to the CONE folks asking if they could provide any information about the status of the camera. About 5 minutes after sending it I received a reply from Professor Goldberg:
Dez is going to the site on Wed to install a bi-directional wireless system that we hope will increase camera framerate, and we have been finalizing the interface.
In a subsequent email, he wrote:
We’ll send more info by the end of this week and please tell those on the blog that we’re working hard on this and apologize for the delay!
So there you have it: We’re not quite ready to go yet, but it sounds like we’re definitely getting closer. Apparently the wireless networking hardware connecting the camera to the Internet has bandwidth issues, such that the camera’s frame rate is unacceptably low. That makes me wonder about the location of the camera. Maybe it’s not right in the main Welder complex that I posted the link to earlier, but is some distance away in the refuge? Wouldn’t it be neat if it it were in a location where we had a view of some wetlands, like the Aransas River?
At it’s closest approach, the river appears to be about 2,000 feet away from the complex:
Also, at least some aspects of the user interface are still being worked on. Given how much fun I had with the old interface, I’m really looking forward to seeing what improvements they’ve come up with for the new system.