This award to Oregon State University provides instrumentation for use on the research vessel Wecoma, an NSF-owned ship operated by OSU as part of the University-National Oceanographic Laboratory System research fleet. The award supports acquisition of a new transducer for the vessel's scientific echo sounder, and it provides a Ku-band shipboard satellite communication system that will allow use of the UNOLS HiSeasNet system for Internet access from sea. This system offers high speed access via satellite, significantly improving scientific and technical information available to scientists at sea, as well as offering shore-based personnel much closer contact with their colleagues in the fieldThis shared-use capability will be available to all funded users of the R/V Wecoma, and will provide a substantial advantage to marine scientists during 2007 and future years.
