"Believe me, that's fast enough", said Eddie Evans Sr., as he waited for the screen of his tablet computer to refresh after submitting a harvest log this Fall. Edward "Eddie" Evans Sr. is one of nine watermen from Smith Island participating in this year's Pilot.
Eddie also participated last year using the Call Center and a cell phone provided by the project. Before the Pilot began he rarely used a cell phone to make calls and had never used a tablet computer. Nevertheless, Eddie was committed to supporting an industry-led initiative to evaluate if the industry had the capability to report harvest using mobile technology. Thanks to his participation, Eddie has contributed much to the improvement of the Pilot reporting system and evaluation of technology.
After a few months of reporting and working through the challenges of inconsistent cellular signal, Eddie had mastered reporting using the Call Center option. He had seen several of his fellow watermen reporting their catch using Smartphones and tablets and was curious about how reporting harvest worked on those devices. So Eddie requested the opportunity to evaluate a tablet to see if he could report his catch like that.
Eddie was trained by the Pilot Project Team on how to use the tablet and the FACTS™ website. Eddie ran into the same problems of poor cell signal and more challenges because sending data over a network required more signal strength than a phone call to the Call Center. Therefore, Eddie went back to reporting most of his daily harvest from his home phone to the Call Center. All the while, the Pilot Project Team was determined to find a solution that would allow Eddie the opportunity to report using the tablet on Smith Island.
In the summer of 2013, our team installed a booster antenna on Eddie's shanty. The antenna is designed to boost the cellular signal in a local area. The booster worked right away and resolved the cell service issue that Eddie was dealing with at his shanty. Since then, Eddie has been reporting his harvest successfully each day using the tablet computer. This is just one example of how this industry-led Pilot Project identified, evaluated and designed a solution to provide the Maryland DNR with more timely, accurate and verifiable blue crab harvest. Thanks Eddie! |