Twenty people have been taking part in a special UV measuring experiment in the Falklands. Divided up into two groups of ten, the volunteers have been wearing wrist watch sized devices since early November. The first 10 have now completed measuring u. v. and now it’s the turn of the second group, who live mainly in Camp.
"The idea is that you wear it outside of your normal clothing so it can be exposed to daylight," said project co-ordinator, Dr. Roger Diggle.
Each group is to wear the device, which has a memory chip in it, for 15 days and record what happened during those days. When turned in, the monitor is placed on a telemetry device and plug that into a computer. The appropriate icon is pushed and the data downloads on to the hard drive of the PC. Then the monitor is reactivated for another 15 days.
"The idea is to actually see how much UV light each individual is getting exposed to and the other thing is to compare the accuracy of these little jobs with the big one that we’ve got sat on the radio mast at the hospital," Dr. Diggle continued.
Initially, 31 people had responded to the call to participate in the data gathering exercise. Because there are only 10 monitors, a reserve group of 11 people were asked to take over should any member of the first groups have to abandon the programme.
"I have selected the two groups because we wanted a mixture of people who work indoors and outdoors. And, the second group has got a number of people from Camp in it whereas the first group hasn’t." he said.
People in Camp received their monitors on the 23rd of November. Instructions on what to write in a daily report include a form to fill in with items like, what participants were up to for each hour of the day. The more information put on there the report, the better, but "Asleep, Awake, Indoors, or Outdoors is the minimum required.
