N01A
In November, this corner reflector looked nominal. The turnbuckles didn't need any adjustments, the posts/pads looked good, the ratchet strap didn't need adjusting, the inclination was spot on, and nothing seemed out of place. I was surprised to see a discrepancy of 15° when I measured an azimuth of 199° instead of the expected 214°. At January's visit, it was 198.5°. The inclination was 16.8°. In February it was 201°. I am not sure why there is such a discrepancy, but I did notice Bison hair stuck in the rivets, so maybe that’s why (see January’s Pictures). We now know it is off because the declination was wrong, but not by 15°. Frost heaving didn’t seem to be a problem in this more compacted field. The inclination was 17.1°. The wind has blown away some of the bedding sand here as well, but not as much.

N02A
In the pictures below, you can see that the corners of the bottom panel are bowed downward. If you recall, they were that way a little September when we were there. On our November visit, the tie-downs in the corners were extremely tight from frost heaving of the posts, causing more bowing. We loosened those turnbuckles in November to relieve the pressure and prevent the bowing and left them so they were barely taught. I removed the cables during the January visit after discovering that they again became very taught, indicating more frost heaving occurred. The support post we added under the middle of the reflector seemed to be doing its job of keeping the bow out of the middle during our November visit, but frost heaving did appear to affect it when we visited in January. The support blocks that were all level with one another in September are no longer level. The reflector was level across the face in the middle, but as you can see in the pictures with the level, the corners bowed downward. We found an azimuth of 317.5° and expected 320°, a discrepancy of 2.5°, 3.5° with the bias. The inclination was 16°. One post is leaning over a bit.

N03A
This reflector is the new one we set up in October and has the ASF-designed Ring Base. There are no tie-downs other than the one holding the ring base down, which didn't need any adjusting. We checked the pointing angle and found it was still at 330° with no adjustments needed. The clamps holding the corner reflector to the ring base were tight. The snow drifts in front of it were rock-hard and held our weight, indicating it had blown hard since our last visit. There is no deflection of the panels due to the lack of tie-downs, as we have seen in other reflectors that have tie-downs securing them. The inclination was 17.9° in January and 18° in this February visit

N31A
The CR was found to be in nominal condition. We removed an inch of snow, found the azimuth to be 330°. We found the inclination to be 16.9°. The clamps holding the corner reflector to the ring base were tight. The blocking I placed under the center and between the ring base and the bottom panel was still in place and doing its job of keeping the center level. There is no deflection of the panels due to the lack of tie-downs, as we have seen in other reflectors that have tie-downs securing them. The extension on the bottom front sags downward a bit at the hinge. We can fix this in March during our next visit.

N32A
One turnbuckle shook completely loose and came apart and another one was just a bit loose, all due to high winds shaking the reflector. The rest of the turnbuckles securing the CR were taught and didn’t need adjusting. The azimuth reading was 208.5° and was expected to be 214°, a 5-degree discrepancy, 6° with the bias. The inclination was 17.6°. You can see where winds have blown away most of the bedding sand we placed under the blocks.