Greetings Everyone,


I would like to take this opportunity to introduce myself to the PSN.  I
have been lurking on the list serv for about six months now.  As I am
nearing the completion of my first seismometer I thought it would be a good
time to make myself known and ask for some wisdom from the more experienced
members.

First a little about me:

My name is Mark Andrews, I am 20 years old and I am from Austin, Texas.  I
am currently attending Texas A&M University, working on my undergraduate
degree, a B.S. in Geology.  I am an avid mineral collector and in my spare
time I enjoy building things and learning how things work.  My idea of the
perfect job is getting paid to look at rocks under a microscope all day.
As it is now I am a student worker for the technician that operates the
four-spectrometer Cameca SX50 Electron Microprobe at Texas A&M.

Now for my seismometer:

At the beginning of last summer vacation I set out to build a seismometer.
After doing a fair amount of reading and searching on the web I came across
Larry Cochrane's site.  I decided to build a Shackleford-Gundersen
seismometer.  It has taken a little longer than I had hoped because I had
to do a lot of searching for information and parts.  By the end of the
summer I had the seismometer built and an amplifier/filter board wire
wrapped.  I was intending to make my own computer interface/A-D board but
school got in the way.  Instead, I'll be going with Larry Cochrane's A-D
board which should work great.  (Thanks Larry!) I should have everything
online by the end of my Christmas break.  I'm going to set the seismometer
up in my dad's basement.

My question, since I only have one sensor, is which way should I point the
sensitive axis?  (The sensor being in Austin, Texas)  Texas isn't exactly
known for its massive earthquakes.  I was thinking about orienting it along
a line that passed between Japan and the Aleutian Islands.  I realize most
people go with strictly North-South or East-West but at the start I'd just
like to be able to detect a few nice quakes.  I guess if I went with
North-South I could catch seismic activity coming up from Mexico and South
America which is a little closer anyway.  What are everyone else's thoughts?

Thanks for your time,

Mark Andrews
Aggie Class of '02
mja6042@.............



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