NIA stands for Network Innovation Associates
http://www.getnia.com

In addition to providing satellite broadband, they also provide a full range of internet and IT solutions.
http://www.getnia.com/products/internet/satellite/index.html

The satellite network they use is provided by ViaSat with the gateway earth station in Atlanta, GA. http://www.viasat.com/
Service is provided on the Horizons 1 satellite at 127 degrees west longitude with the service speed being 256×256 kbps.The terminal equipment is the ViaSat DVB/RCS LinkStar modem with a 2 watt Ku band transmitter mounted on a 1.2 meter satellite dish. The VOIP adapter is as Digium IAXY using the IAX2 protocol.

VOIP service is provided through the Microcom IP switch in Anchorage using an open source Asterisk IP software package. The VOIP adapter is as Digium IAXY using the IAX2 protocol.

A big thanks to Mr. Tom Brady of Anchorage-based Microcom for facilitating the support from NIA and to Chip Carpenter, KuC ITS student, for putting the system together w/ Tom and organizing the deployment at Nash Harbor.

Thanks to Shortie Salzbrun for welding-up the non-penetrating mount…it blew 40 last night and the dish didn’t move an inch.

Its been loads of fun here! It was windy the last like 4 days but today it’s really nice out. I shedded alot of my outdoor clothes. Yesterday we all went out for a hike to prepair ourselves for our up-comming hike across the island. That was really fun despite the bad weather. We saw alot. It’s been suppriseing me that we havent ran out of things to see… we see and do something new every day! its so amazing. Today we went on a kayaking trip out on the sea! It was super easy getting there, but it took alot to get back. OH! we took our first test and I passed it! I passed a college level test! Im so happy about that. For every test we take, theres two i-pods to raffel off if the class as a whole gets an 80% average. We got a 91% average, so we’re all doing really good.

Peri Sanders

Going into the end of the third week and i have been working for a little over a week now here at YK Tech. So far i have learned a lot about the system they use and how to use some of the important applications. At first i was set with the Help Desk and a while later i got moved into the Networking group. With the Networking group, I started more hands-on activites. the thing i had fun doing is making connection cables this week. Hopefully after Joe Shawler, our supervisor, talks with Shane we can be able to go on at least one or two village travels to see how they work the telemedicine and voice over IP-ing. that sounds like fun. with the rest of the program, it is going a little better than before. getting used to waking up early in the morning and starting to understand more about the Pre-Calc class. three weeks down and about 4 more to go. sounds like a lot but i believe i can live through it. Networking is pretty fun and i like working with the whole staff list. CAN’T WAIT TO GET PAID NEXT FRIDAY, JULY 7!!!! haha.. well, best get back to work here.. later

JR

On a nice windy day in Nash Harbor, the Summer Science Field Camp class is making pottery out of local resources. As the students make the pottery they tested all the different types of land, water and other resources to find many different ways to keep the clay together and uncracks. The only challenge after all they’re hard work is to wait till it’s dry enough to be baked in a fire and hopefully not crack or explode. The pottery is made from a variety of local resources such as clay found along the beach, cut up grass, muskox hair and bird feathers to temper the clay to prevent the pottery from expanding or contracting during the bake in the fire. We hope that these old traditions could still be alive and practiced to this day.

Summer Science Student,

~Optimistic Oscar~

Today was a cool day. Right after lunch I noticed twelve to thirteen muskox on the ridge behind camp. They were so close that you could easily make them out with out using binoculars. After that amazing sight I came down to the class room tent and am now getting ready to release my first movie within a few hours. Well, back to work.

Jamie Jorgensen

We ate good here tonight! Yesterday Ira (our resident cook) shot a reindeer for us to eat. About five of us kids hiked to where Ira shot the reindeer and watched as he gutted it and cut up the meat. Then we hauled the meat back to camp. The weather here yesterday was very stormy. At points during the day the wind was gusting as strong as 30 mph. Today we worked on excavating the remains of the historic kiiyaq a.k.a. men’s house. Then six of us kayaked with Chris north towards Cape Algonquin. We kayaked in double kayaks and my partner was Oscar. It was really easy paddling on the way out. We saw puffins, pelagic cormorants, seagulls, snow buntings and a few other birds whose names I have not yet learned. We also paddled by the dead whale. It’s still there and still stinky, although the ocean has now washed it farther ashore. On the way back Oscar and I were the first people back to camp. When I was putting my rudder up right before we came ashore I dropped my paddle. Oscar paddled us over to the paddle and as he reached for it we started to tip. He tried to stop us from tipping. I didn’t try to stop us because I sort of wanted to try tipping into the ocean. After we tipped we pulled our kayak to shore. Then Oscar and I dunked our heads into the stream that flows in front of camp. Long story short; we both got really really bad brain freezes. All in all we are having a really extraordinary time here at Nash Harbor.

~Jessica~

P.S. Watch Martin’s video on the tourists!

These are some of the impressions the students had of their encounter with ‘the great Alaskan Tourist’.

Video clickety click below

click here to download

Finally the wind has settled down, It seems as though we’ve been here forever, but its only been a week. I’ve learned so much in that small amount of time and experienced many new things. (From kayaking to butchering reindeer its been fun and not only that but setting up our own Archaelogical dig site and dug up some cool stuff). Well I’m off to finish my movie. Love you mom and dad and hi to all the cruise ship passangers that read this and anyone else.

Jamie Jorgensen

Here is a trailer of a video I still have in production. I hope you all enjoy it.
-Jeff Typpo.

click here to download

The following video is a great short documentary on Cormorants by Jessica Klejka.

click here to download

Here is the 2nd award winning video this year by Dara Friday.

Check it out below.

click here to download

Stay tuned for more… very soon.

Hi Mom, Hi everyone, and Cruiz ship people. I am doing really good, and in the next couple of days we are going to go on our five day hike across the island. Today at 7:00 am the Cruiz ship got here and around 8:00 they were on shore and we talked with them and one of them gave us all a clown nose. Well i better get going, bye -Albert S.

Yesterday we had a little more (school) work than we usually do, but at the same time we didnt do much outside… if im remembering right, the days are kind of blending together, no matter how many amazing things happen. I’ve seen things here that ive never or rarely see in Bethel. I’m really happy im here doing this, its something totally new. ive never froze in the middle of the night… in the middle of summer. kinda crazy… but its still been really fun. today some tourists came to check out the island… that was kind of fun/weird/exciting/weird. i didnt think i knew that much about this place untill i saw people being as lost as i was my first couple days here. every day here is a new adventure. when were not doing something i feel kind of guilty for just sitting around when theres so much to do. the time i start to miss home is night time though… thats when im freezing my you-know-what off. buttttttttttttt… yea. im lovin it.

Peri Sanders

This is my first blog recording the first week (about) on Nunivak Island. We did a lot of things here, like the hike to the dead whale, kayaking in the lagoon (and falling in), karaoke in the tents, and to the gravesites and rolling down the hill (snow). The first week was interesting. It was a bit different than I thought. It was a lot colder too. But it’s all okay. We learned to keep warm with bacon grease, feathers, and pilot crackers. Well, we just use the useful down things that they gave us, and it even gets hot. The geography of Nunivak Island is amazing. The cliffs watch over the falling tide below, and the rocks are thrown across the beaches. The rocks on the face are home to the birds alien to the any other place that I’ve been. The water comes up and the water goes down, changing the river from salty to fresh water. The graves show existence of the people who survived here throughout the winters and summers, but tell nothing of their lives. It’s interesting to walk by the old houses, still preserving the tools made with the little material they managed with. This place is awesome. But yeah.

later

Nels JC Smith

Hey everyone,

It’s been rainy here at Nash Harbor for the last few days. The cruise ship arrived today and we woke up really early so we could watch them arrive. Now I am taking a break from being outside in the cold fog. We have a weather port set up for our classroom and we have laptops that are connected to the internet and run by a generator so we can do research and blog this website. We are still having a lot of fun! We are going to be leaving camp in a few days to go on a five day hike across the island. We have been really busy with class work lately so we can go on our hike. I finished my video yesterday on Cormorants (they are a type of bird that lives on the cliffs here). Now I just need to add audio facts to my video. The boys have been keeping us up every night with their singing. If you haven’t heard Eddie sing”You’re Beautiful” by James Blunt, you should. They also sang every Disney song they could think of. Well I guess that’s all for now.

~Jessica ~

P.S. Mom I just met some people off the cruise ship who are from Canton, Ohio.

It has been awesome here in Nash Harbor. We’ve kept busy the whole time. Nearly every day we have hiked several miles. It has been pretty chilly here, but we have some cool gear, and some good food to keep us warm. kayaking has been great, and exhausting. With the little free time we have we fish(I caught 2 dollies), film each other, do homework, and play crazy games. So got to go ttyl.

Levi Wegner

Ever since we’ve been at this camp at Nunivak Island we have been both physically and mentally shocked at how much material we could learn in just five days!!! I found many bones, saw a dead humback whale, and met some cool people….during the nights it gets pretty crazy…karioke and all sorts of stories. lol!!! The next morning we wake up at seven to eat and go to class at nine and then class lab & recordings. well I have to get back to work.

bye, Oscar Perry

Hello everyone this is Eddie on nunivak island…. Its so kool here! We do so many neat things here like hiking, kayaking, making videos, and just hanging out. We saw a dead whale that stunk, a fox, muskoxen, dolly vardens and like hundreds of birds…. Its kool here! We go walking on the tundra every day and learn so much from our kool professors…. Well hope you all enjoy reading this. Later

-Eddie

Well, maybe not tropical. Temperatures have been cool, but more bearable than Bethel’s bugs. Nash Harbor is an impressive place, and our 11 students have been busy here.

The camp stirs early and students head to breakfast before spending the mornings in lecture. In the afternoons they participate in labs related to their course content. The 1.1 million acres of Nunivak Island make an ideal lab space despite dismally low populations of bunsen burners and microscopes per square mile. In this week’s natural history labs the students have unearthed thousand-year-old artifacts, cozied up to a dead humpback whale, chipped blades and bowls from local stone, and observed wildlife ranging in size from muskoxen to Lapland Longspur chicks. In the evenings they log and edit video footage from the day’s activities for use in the short films each will produce.

Outside of class, the landscape offers lots of distractions. Camp sits alongside a short stream between the ocean and a tidal lagoon, and each high tide flushes in new schools of Dolly Varden, arctic char, and the occasional salmon and flounder. The cliffs up the hill offer great hiking, views, birdwatching, and opportunities to find qiviut, or muskox wool. Some of the students have started a small grinding factory to powder uiteq, the red ochre stone pigment found nearby that served as a valuable local trade item. Several afternoons have offered the opportunity to qayaq in the lagoon, and tonight students will cut the chill in the men’s and women’s maqivik (steambaths). And after the staff declares tent time, the students stay up talking and laughing in their WeatherPorts longer than even their superhuman teenage endurance should allow.
As soon as the weather gets reasonably nice the big boat will take us around Cape Mohican to a spike camp near the bird cliffs at Tacirrarmiut (marked on most maps as Dooksook Lagoon). From there the students will backpack back to Nash Harbor.

Watch out for more student videos and pictures to be posted soon.

Ben

You can view all of the comments from the summer science blog by following this link!
http://www.bloglines.com/preview?siteid=5887547

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