After arriving in Oklahoma and checking into their accommodation Ben and his father, Steve were keen to start seismology. They had some basic equipment on loan from the UK school seismology project. A laptop, running jAmaseis (free datalogging and analysis software designed for use in schools), an old geophone (a sensor which converts ground vibrations into voltages) an old digitser (to convert the voltages into computer readable numbers) and a whole mess of cables.
During a late night skype call to Paul Denton, (leader of the school seismology project at the BGS and also a resident of Oakham) Ben gets stuck into the technical details of setting up his own monitoring station. Lessons learned
1) cable spaghetti not only looks messy but often stops things working.
2) if things are not working for no apparent reason, switch the computer off and on again... it really works !
Finally success... a jump test confirms the sensor is working.
All we need to do now is wait for an earthquake !
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