America's national forests, with their seemingly endless natural beauty, would normally be the last place one would find cutting-edge computer technology. Yet for those individuals charged with developing and protecting the integrity of our country's timberlands, computers have become an increasingly valuable—even indispensable—forest management tool.

Art Clinton, director of field data acquisition for the United States Department of Agriculture's Forest Service/Region Six, is one of the people at the forefront of this important work. It's Clinton's job to evaluate, purchase, package, maintain, and upgrade the hundreds of handheld portable computers used throughout the Forest Service's Pacific Northwest region.

Each year, the USDA Forest Service sends hundreds of full-time and seasonal workers into the federal wilderness of Washington and Oregon to convert trees, vegetation, streams, and rivers into actionable data. Through surveys, inventories, field estimates, and even tedious hand-counting, foresters and field technicians capture and quantify the changing environmental landscape. The resulting information is used for timber management, fish inventories, land sales, water quality, riparian assessment, and much more.

Ruggedized handhelds provide platform

Clinton and his staff have found that such a gargantuan task requires state-of-the-art ruggedized handheld computer devices. Many Forest Service workers are away from civilization for days, even weeks at a time, sleeping outdoors and subjecting their computers, to rain, dust, heat, mud, and even accidental drops onto rocks or into waterways.

Among the equipment used by Clinton's staff is the Itronix fex21 (pronounced F-E-X, from "field explorer") Handheld PC 2000, a unit specially engineered to take rough outdoor treatment. At just 28 ounces in weight (batteries included) and possessing a shock-resistant, waterproof case, the fex21 is a suitable platform for long-term field use.

Mike Berg, president of Handheld Systems, Inc., the Portland, Oregon reseller that outfitted Clinton's crew with Itronix units said the fex21 offers protection against water, heat, cold, dust, direct sunlight, vibration, and electronic discharge, and it was also the first handheld to meet military standard drop and seal specifications. Berg went on to say that the fex21 uses a rigid "open book" design instead of the traditional folding clamshell found in most Handheld PCs. The hinges are the weakest part of the clamshell design, the part most susceptible to damage with rugged outdoor use.

Field automation applications

To collect and tabulate its data, the Forest Service uses Microsoft Excel and Access database software as well as Microsoft Word. Information is stored on CompactFlash cards for easy data handling in the field. Data is also transferred, once technicians return from their wilderness assignments, via serial cable hookup to desktop PCs at the Forest Service's central offices.

Currently, 400 fex21 Handheld PCs are in use nationally by the USDA Forest Service including Region Six, a massive area encompassing 19 National Forests, one National Grassland, and a National Scenic Area. Also included in this region is the Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument, site of the most violent volcanic eruption in U.S. history.

"Our handheld devices are subjected to a very high degree of punishment," Clinton commented. "They've been dropped off bluffs, submerged in mountain streams, even carried 150 feet high into trees to record counts of insect pupae. At any temperature, under any environmental condition, these units have to be able to take it."

To make data entry easier for his staff, Clinton has leveraged the large touch screen on the fex21 with the installation of ParaGraph Calligrapher, a natural handwriting recognition application. "Many times personnel don't have both their hands free, which makes it difficult to quickly enter data via the keyboard," Clinton noted. "By making Calligrapher available, our users have their choice of touchscreen, keyboard, or handwritten data interfaces." (Phatware, www.phatware.com, offers versions of Calligrapher for other versions of Pocket PCs).