A low power ocean data recorder

An instrument has been designed to record vertical current information. It does this by sequentially monitoring pressure, temperature, and rotation sensors. The data is stored on a digital cassette tape recorder. In addition, it generates a signal for acoustically telemetering part of the data. This permits a check on performance without the need for recovery. The instruments can be readily adapted to a wide range of sensors. Its original use was in the long range floats used in the Mid Ocean Dynamics Experiment (MODE I).