Stage gage equipment housed in weatherproof  enclosure. Float and pulley with shaft encoder attached to data logger. The shaft encoder converts the analog signal from the rotation of the pulley into a digital signal sent to the data logger. The data logger stores the digital signal at a predefined interval (presently set to 10 minutes). The data logger shown has 128k of memory, storing well over a years worth of data (at 10 minute interval).  The stored data is downloaded to the University computers weekly and hecked for system malfunction.

Stilling well and equipment enclosure. The stilling well encloses the float and cable assembly in a protected and quiescent environment. A small hole(s) near the bottom of the stilling well allows the water to rise and fall within the well while keeping out short time period waves that distort the signal or that can result in the cable slipping off the pulley of the shaft encoder. The weatherproof enclosure protects the various sampling equipment, logger and batteries. Stilling wells are mounted plum (even though it doesn't look like it in the picture) and braced for high turbulent and possibly debris laden flows.

Vertically profiling ultrasonic doppler velocity meter. This meter uses doppler effect to determine the velocity of the water column. An ultrasonic signal is sent out on an angle vertically upward  from the instrument. The signal bounces off particles dispersed in the water column and is picked up by the instrument. The instrument then detects the signal shift and assigns a velocity to each particle. Several hundred particles are sampled many times from which average velocity can be determined for the logger interval.  The water temperature is also continuously measured to correct for the speed of the signal.