Our project’s official orchardist expertly hangs one of the first two boxes in Shelton while I connect a system controller module. We’re live! Thank you, All, for a successful first field operation!
This project’s aggressive development schedule means that we will soon be learning a lot about next needed steps to fix and optimize operation. One discovery already was that the locking steel boxes might be great for security but they’re bad for receiving GPS signals. Signals from GPS satellites are extremely weak and are easily blocked by metal. Even with the door wide open and facing the sky it struggled to see only a few GPS satellites. It needs to see at least four or five GPS satellites to get an accurate locational fix (mathematical theory says you only need signals from three GPS satellites to fix your location in space, but in the noisy real world you need four or five satellites, and preferrably eight or ten). Future steel boxes will need GPS antennas mounted on the outside of the boxes instead of inside. The plastic boxes should be fine.
