If the live feed goes quiet for a while around midnight, don't worry: Lisbon Finals is getting a new home.
For months our sensors lived in a clear plastic box with holes drilled in front of the microphone. It did the job, but everything was squeezed together, hard to reach, and the microphone listened through the wall. So we designed a brand new enclosure from scratch and printed it, piece by piece, on our own 3D printer: walls, floor, an upper deck for the sound level meter, a roof on a stainless hinge, and a front panel that folds back as a prop when we open it.
It took a few failed prints (one floor curled up like a crisp), a lot of tiny screws that were far too tiny, and some patience with heat-set inserts. The result is compact, solid and, above all, practical: every component now has its own place, the radio stick sits in a pocket with its own hatch, the microphone pokes outside under a little rain hood instead of listening through holes, and everything can be reached without unplugging half the station.
Tonight, between the last arrivals and the first morning flights, we'll move every component into the new box and use the downtime for a full electrical check of the measuring chain, including a fresh calibration with our 94/114 dB reference source.
A short gap in the data is expected. We'll tell you how it went.
Station Captain