It was quite an easy trip this time, time passed quickly mostly due to some third party testing of a new type of seismic recording system.
I am not permitted to talk about specifics, but they have a lot of things to sort out and suffice to say Sercel have nothing to worry about.
One piece of equipment I can talk about is the Force III vibrator controller from
SSI :
http://seismicsource.com/html/products/sourcecontrol/force3
This was used as the controller for some of the testing with the new recording system
It still needs some work, but it is already way ahead of I/O’s VibPro. Of course that would not be very difficult.
Two huge advantages are no DR Plate and No DSS box required.
They need to work on the operator interface, the QC package and better connectors, but the system looks like it has a future.
Its biggest downside is that it looks so much like a VibPro. Pity really, I would have thought they would want to divorce themselves in every way possible from that thing.
SSI has other offerings, some of them quite interesting, but they really need to consider the naming of some of these – juvenile names like BoomBox and BirdDog are relics of a bygone era.
I am certainly put off by the names (despite 33 years in the industry) and would never consider them for use on a crew because of it. Especially when there are other, very capable systems on the market with more professional names. It is not 1975 anymore and names like these reflect poorly on a company’s image.
Although I suppose if they only want to sell in North America it’s OK, perhaps even required.
Some updates to SMTAN2 coming soon.
More QC software in development.
Going back to work in mid February, I think.