A couple of weeks ago we started getting intermittent network connectivity to the observatory and to the two data gathering systems running there.
Yesterday the cable break was temporarily repaired. Data is flowing again. Sometime in the spring we are planning on running a new 30m cat6 cable out there, buried in the ground with some kind of protection.
A lot of the extreme hot/cold cycles in temperature that we’ve been getting over the last month is the mot likely culprit, with the exposed parts of the cable getting frozen in a snow/ice mix and then with the heating.cooling cycles, the cable came apart at the site of the previous patch.
That previous patch lasted a few years, caused by a bunny chewing its way through the cable completely.