From the Capaccio web site
High above the community of Capaccio overlooking the Mar Tirreno (Tyrrhenian Sea) is the church Madonna Del Granato. I was not along when this station was installed, but basically the friars at the church said that they would need to get permission from headquarters before they would allow us to to set up a site within the grounds. We didn't have that kind of patience. On a whim, John went looking for private residences in the area with Salvatore to ask people if they would mind hosting a station on their property.
Near the church was a collection of buildings which where in the same location on the map as the village Capaccio Vécchio, or ancient Capaccio. The buildings in the picture below all belonged to one family. It was the first, and only place, John had to look.
The journey to the actual location of the site involved a short walk into a grove of olive trees and past some cactus plants that made me think I was in Arizona. There were familiar cacti plants all over the parts of Italy that we visited.
The station was at the base of a formation of rock that ran through the property. A hole was dug into the dirt until solid rock was reached. The hole was deep enough to put a whole plastic flower pot into. Now get this: When we arrived at the site to service the station, and later looked at the data back in Grottaminarda, it could easily be seen how just the weight to our bodies deformed, or caused the "solid" rock formation to move! This gives you an idea of how sensitive the sensors for this experiment were. The data also contained a lot of high-frequency noise (about 2-3 Hertz) which may have been caused by the wind pushing on that apparently, increasingly, not-so-solid rock formation. Moving the station further down the property was put on the schedule for the next visit.
This was the view from the path going to the station. The neighbors were burning something...but not their house.
The ruins of yet another castle were right next to the path.
I'm not sure, in the picture above, who she was exactly, but she would not
come out and have her picture taken with everyone else, so this is the kind
of picture you get when you do that.
These were the folks that were finishing up lunch about the time that we were finishing up servicing the station. We were invited in for yummy snacks and grappa. Giuseppe Tommasini, who was our contact person, is kneeling down in front. Salvatore and John are in the back. We had a great time this time, and from what I heard during the rest of the experiment, on later visits too. What a nice bunch of people!
2018-03-05