receiving station and console; this equipment as 

 well as the transmitting-receiving equipment and 

 auxiliary read-out equipment, may be located 

 aboard ship or at a shore station. The second is the 

 instrument moorings, which consist of the surface 

 buoy (receiving, transmitting, recording and con- 

 trol electronics with power supply) and subsurface 

 digitizer sensor packages. The sensors measure 

 current speed and direction, water temperature, 

 conductivity (salinity), and the depth of the 

 measurement. The system has been operated with 

 several buoys reporting to one ship. Recent tests 

 have indicated that the buoy can successfully 

 transmit its data via satellite. 



ESSA has also gained some experience in the 

 development of stable platforms-i.e., buoys that 

 remain essentially fixed below the surface. In 

 addition, ESSA is developing a low-cost buoy 

 platform for instrumentation to be interrogated by 



Figure 16. Buoy under development at ESSA, 

 after being moored at Ocean Station "ECHO" 

 (35°N, 48° W) on May 23, 1968. In back- 

 ground is the Coast Guard cutter Casco, which 

 assisted in the mooring operation. (ESSA 

 photo) 



satellite. A test platform was moored at station 

 "ECHO" in the North Atlantic (35°N, 48°W) on 

 May 23, 1968 at a depth of 14,000 feet, and 

 remained in place until September 1968. 



In the majority of buoy installations, the Coast 

 Guard has cooperated by providing the mooring 

 vessel, as well as considerable expertise. 



C. National Program— Coast Guard 



In 1966 the Ocean Engineering Panel of the 

 ICO (Interagency Committee for Oceanography) 

 recommended that a coordinated effort be under- 

 taken in buoy development. A feasibility and 

 state-of-the-art review, funded jointly by several 

 agencies, was initiated. The Coast Guard acted as 

 the executive agent for the study, completed in 

 October 1967. The National Council on Marine 

 Resources and Engineering Development, after 

 reviewing the study, concluded that extensive 

 research, development, test, and evaluation were 

 required, leading eventually to the establishment 

 of a National Data Buoy System. The Coast 

 Guard, designated as the responsible agency for 

 system development, established its National Data 

 Buoy Systems Project Management Office in 

 December 1967. 



This system is viewed as one major subsystem 

 of the total national marine meteorological/ 

 oceanographic data acquisition system, which has 

 not yet been completely defined. It has been 

 recognized that improved estimates of user bene- 

 fits are required. Chapter 9 contains the panel's 

 views in this area. The panel finds that adequate 

 field testing should be required before a com- 

 mitment is made to a full-scale operational system, 

 because of its estimated cost. Experimental sys- 

 tems can be used to advance fundamental under- 

 standing of the partition of energy among differ- 

 ent scales of motion, sea-air interaction, and ocean 

 current dynamics (cited in Chapter 6 as major 

 scientific limitations on our ability to predict 

 oceanographic parameters). In particular, knowl- 

 edge of scales of motion is vital for planning an 

 operational buoy network; research experiments 

 would also provide opportunities for hardware 

 tests. 



Operational buoys will provide platforms for 

 sensors to collect biological and chemical data as 

 well as physical parameters. Such employment of 



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