Nortek

What's luckier than finding a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow? Finding a Signature ADCP, of course! These shots are from a few days of recent field testing of AWACs, Signatures and Aquadopp Profilers in Norway. Yes, Norwegian summer might be chilly at times, but at least it's beautiful

Thanks Ben Hunt for sharing and for your last 20 years of AWAC use! We can't wait to see where you take the Gen 2 AWACs in the future.

Did you know Nortek actually has an F1 team? Just kidding... but we can use this racecar as a great demonstration of the Doppler effect, the principle that all of our ADCPs operate on. The Doppler effect occurs when the source of a sound and the receiver ("listener") of the sound are moving relative to one another. In this case, we are standing still as the racecar zooms by. The car's engine is making a sound of a constant frequency. When the racecar is moving towards us, the source of the sound is moving closer and closer to us. This has the effect of compressing the sound waves, making the engine sound higher-pitched (i.e., higher frequency) than it actually is. When the car moves away from us, the sound source is moving farther and farther away, making the sound waves farther apart and lower frequency. In the case of ADCPs, the ADCP is the listener and small particles moving passively in the water column act as the sound source. The ADCP sends out a sound of a known frequency, which gets bounced back off of these small particles in the water column. Because the particles are moving, this returned signal is Doppler shifted, and the ADCP can use that information to determine the water's speed and direction. Learn more in our complete guide: https://bit.ly/3YwvRxl

What's the big deal if my #ADCP is tilting and moving around? It's important to keep your ADCP as stable as possible during deployment to make sure your measurements are accurate. If your ADCP is tilted too much, measurements that are meant to be at one water level will actually be measured at a different depth altogether! While some of this can be fixed in post-processing, and while having a quality sensor like an internal AHRS to measure ADCP motion can help, it's always best to keep your ADCP as vertical as possible during a deployment (whether that be up- or down-looking). Learn more about the effects of tilt in our complete guide to ADCP measurements: https://bit.ly/4dJf66v

Understanding the behavior of marine animals is often key to preserving and protecting the environments they call home. Researcher Jessica Pate of the Marine Megafauna Foundation noticed that these seemingly fun-loving manta rays were spending time in a notoriously dangerous inlet in South Florida. "You just watch boat, after boat, after boat go right over them,” says Pate, noting that the manta rays can be in just a few meters of water when the boats are above them. “It seems like a really horrible place to be, so I’m really curious as to why they’re choosing that inlet.” Pate used an Eco #ADCP to characterize the currents in the inlet— a step up from her previous method of throwing orange peels in the water and timing their travel from A to B. Learn more about her study in this article: https://bit.ly/3A5pgQf

For those of us who want to have a "board meeting" but might not have great surfing waves accessible all the time — or for those who just want some zen— why not hop on a stand-up paddleboard? This photo is from our UK team's recent before-work jaunt out on the River Hamble near Southampton. We hope you can get out on the water this weekend, whether it's for a surf or a paddle or something in between!

#FAQ: Will starting my instrument in air harm the transducers? People often ask our support team if starting their #ADCP or #DVL in air will cause damage. Good news— not only will starting your instrument in air not damage it, it's actually recommended to determine the instrument's noise floor! View our support team's insights and other FAQs on our support site: https://bit.ly/3YkzdmP

Do you know how #ADCPs measure waves? ADCPs can measure both wave height and wave direction. Maybe you remember this animation showing how wave orbitals attenuate with depth. ADCPs measure these wave orbital velocities close to the surface to determine wave direction. To determine wave height, (some) ADCPs use Acoustic Surface Tracking. The ADCP's vertical beam takes a direct measurement of the sea surface. To see more animations and illustrations like this one, and learn the ins and outs of wave measurement with ADCPs, download our full guide here: https://bit.ly/3Yj0oP7 #ADCP #waves

Have you ever wondered how our VM systems actually work? Vessel-mounted ADCPs rely on the same principles as stationary ADCPs, using pings of sound sent into the water column to determine current speed and direction. However, vessel-mounted ADCPs encounter an extra layer of complication while measuring, because the vessel on which they are mounted is moving. This means the ADCP will have to account for the speed and direction of the vessel when determining the velocity of the currents beneath it. Thankfully, an ADCP can also calculate the speed of the vessel over the seabed, using a technique called “bottom tracking.” To perform bottom tracking, the ADCP measures the Doppler shift of a ping that bounces off the seabed, rather than scatterers in the water like with current measurements. This effectively measures the speed of the vessel relative to the sea floor. As shown in this animation, vessel-mounted ADCPs can also be used to measure biomass, like fish or krill. To learn more about the possibilities of vessel-mounted current measurements, download our complete guide: https://bit.ly/3zNBmxe

“I started using a Nortek current meter back in… oh, gosh, it’s probably 15 years ago!” says Joth Davis, co-founder and principal at Blue Dot Sea Farms a Puget Sound-based seaweed and shellfish farming company. Davis has been working with his family on their shellfish and seaweed farming businesses since the 1990s, and has been using an #Aquadopp current meter for much of that time. He uses the instrument to determine the optimal setup of seaweed farms. To learn more about Davis, the tasty snacks he and his team are making from seaweed, and his research on how seaweed can remove carbon from its environment, read the full article on our website: https://bit.ly/4658750