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How’s the signal?

Engineer Jason Smith from WHOI’s Upper Ocean Processes Group tests part of the data-transmission system of a new mooring before deployment. The big yellow cylinder on deck to his right contains modems that allow the buoy to collect real-time data from instruments below the surface, and transmit it back to scientists ashore; the large black hose connects to the mooring’s instrument-bearing buoy. Physical oceanographer Tom Farrar heads this project and led the cruise to place the mooring in the Red Sea in October 2008. (Photo by Alexander Dorsk, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)