Expedition Dispatches
Satellite phone updates from the 1998 American Everest Expedition


Corfield
Even Through a Nuclear Winter
Tuesday, April 14, 1998 — Base Camp (17,500')
Hear Charles Corfield's call from Base Camp
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Satellite phones for Everest cybercasts provided by MVS/USA


Electronics Kathmandu style
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(photo: Corfield)
Hello Mountain Zone, this is Charles Corfield calling in from Everest base camp. In this dispatch I'd like to tell you about what we've got set up here at base camp in order that we can communicate with the outside world.

Our power system was built by a company called Lotus Energy in Kathmandu that specializes in solar power systems. Outside the communications tent, in which I'm sitting, are two large photoelectric rays (solar pannels) which crank out about 150 Watts during the day.

The guys of Lotus Energy will keep your generators humming in the Khumbu.
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(photo: Corfield)
We can go and charge two very large car batteries which will give us about a five days supply in the event of a nuclear winter or eclipse of the sun which lasts a little longer than anticipated.

Finally, everything is hooked up to a bright orange suitcase, with an awful lot of connections coming out of it, and this is how we regulate our voltage so that we can run computers, inverters, zip drives, satellite phone and the like from our solar system. This is what we have been using now to get dispatches up to you and emails and images from the last few days. I would say that the folks at Lotus Energy have done an absolutely excellent job in putting this all together, and they did it in about two days flat while we were in Kathmandu. Now, that's it — catch up with you later.

— Charles Corfield, Expedition Science Manager

DISPATCHES