t-rex-iss-mapr: RADAR Messages: 41 Entries..

Profiler to wind200_rass100_30min mode at 0:30UT (Apr 28)

RASS for the first 5 minutes of each half hour, winds in 200 metre mode.
From 5 to 30 minutes of each hour, running with bird algorithm SAM 
parameter set to the standard 1.0.
From 35 to 60 minutes, SAM parameter set to 0.8 to test if this level
helps to remove more bird echoes.

MAPR sensitivity seems a little low this afternoon so trying reducing
input attenuator to 3 (was 4) at about 2318UT.

Still 100 meter pulse.
Minicom reports porward power went up from 10% of rated to 19%,
and now we're seeing better signal.

MAPR transmitter was down from about 1930 UT yesterday.

Minicon terminal "!Temperature Fault!" messages, although yesterday
was fairly cool (about 12C at the time of the fault and a high
of 15C).

RF Ctrl was on. It started transmitting again after pressing the 
Blanking button.

Running okay from 1620UT.
 

MAPR hung at about 19:15 UT.  
Reason unknown.  No error messages or md-log.
Watchdog did not automatically restart mapr.

Maprdisplay in spectra screen, but linus still responsing.
Quit button did stop maprdisplay.

Rebooted computer to be safe (had been up 21 days).
Started maprdisplay about 21:50 UT.

MAPR - changed mode to 100 meter mode (wind100_rass100) 1910UT

Also during the last RASS run MAPR reported an error message and restarted
(see md-log).  Very brief stoppage - no loss of data.

20:21 Switched from wind200_rass100_30min mode to wind100_rass100

23:02 Switched from wind100_rass100 to wind200_rass100 mode.

The latest version of maprdisplay started about 2006-04-18,22:00 UTC.

mapr -version:

URL: http://localhost:8003/svn/mapr/trunk/mapr @ Revision: 741

There were (should have been) no effective changes to the configuration.  SAM
and overlaps still default to being on, and the SAM ratio threshold defaults
to 1.0.  The difference is in correlation processing: SAM is applied to the
receiver spectra before cross-correlations as opposed to being applied to
cross-correlated spectra.

Switched MAPR from wind100_rass100 to wind200_rass100_30min,
ie, 200 meter mode with RASS runs every half hour.

MAPR was switched to 200 meter mode at 0356 to get better resolution.
Schedule name wind200_rass100.

MAPR was switched to 100 meter mode at 1830 to get better resolution.
Schedule name wind100_rass100.

There appears to been a brief period of NE winds prior to the shift
at around 1815.

Changed to 200m wind mode over night.

It's nighttime, and MAPR does not appear to be seeing much, so I thought
I should change to 200m gates.

Not much coming through so I changed the mode to 200m pulses. Doing this the VSWR fault light turned on so I increased the attenuation. As daylight comes up I'll go back to 100m mode. 

Swapped out the antenna to frontend cables and turned on blanking during this period, but left MAPR running.

back to 100m gates at 1910utc

Today I'm going to change the antenna to front end cables. These should have less loss and be more durable. 

The red channel seems to have come back come. It is still low, but nothing like yesterday. 

I spoke too soon, now it is down again within 15 minutes.. 

I've changed cables at the antenna and that didn't fix it. 

I've plugged and unplugged in case there was some corrosion, knocked off glue-then tightened and cleaned the SMA connectors. Right now it is tracking much closer. Not certain why, but the red channel is much better. 

Per Bill's request, I switched the mapr schedule to wind200_rass100
at 4/1/06 06:30 UTC.

At the same time, I installed the following code changes to see if they help
with the overrun of time series buffers:

 SAM is automatically disabled for RASS mode.

 The number of time series buffers has been increased to twice nspec.

As of an hour later, I'm not noticing any adverse affects.
No VSWR messages in the amplifier console.
The latest RASS IDL plots for 7z look fine.

During the last RASS mode there were no messages about 0 buffers available.
Only time will tell though if this fixes the crashing.

I have no explanation for the freeze/lock-up of the mapr computer that Mike 
reported earlier tonight.

I changed the mode so the RASS runs only 1 hourly. Mode now wind100_rass100

I knocked the dust out of the final of which there was a substantial amount. 

Something is really screwy about the red channel now. It looks like RFI in the background and is marching through in frequency from one end of the doppler shift to the other. When I get a chance I'm going to crawl under the antenna and see if a cable has rattled loose. Bi8ll says he thinks the red channel has dropped in SNR for a couple of weeks now. 

A closer visual inspection of the red channel antenna related cables shows no problems. Inspection of the rechannel into the white box/computer also shows no problems.

I can't get the mouse to move now at 2356. I think I'm going to reboot the computer. The full reboot and power down did nothing to correct the red channel lack of SNR. 

The MAPR system very interestingly also bogs down and sits for a while until something quits and then several dwells flash through. 

Do to too much processing required and never getting 1.3 km of RASS data the number of RASS gates is now reduced from 12 to 9 gates.

switched to wind200_rass100_30min at 0020 UTC 30 March
 to get more RASS profiled during EOP

changed MAPR mode to wind200_rass100 at 0145 UTC march 28 for iop,
had to increase resistance to 5 because VSWR light came
on flashing.

changed MAPR mode to wind100_rass100 min at 2015 UTC - data looked
noisey

changed attentuation back down to 4 (counter clockwise one click) at 2120 UTC

After power failures and trying to reset the transmitter I noticed the
VSWR light was blinking, Bill recommeded increasing the attentuation ~ 0400 UTC
march 26 (turned the dial one notch in the clockwise direction from (4 to 5
lined up with the lead into the dial).

Very Strong surface winds (> 20 m s-1) lead to another power failure 
at the MAPR trailer. This one lasted about 5 min.

I shutdown MAPR as before (quit maprdisplay and switched off transmitter).

Waited for winds to die down before I restarted.

Seems to have come up ok, but will wait around to make sure.

Brief power failure caused MAPR transmitter to go offline.

UPS alarms went off.

Talked to Bill. Blinking light was illuminated red.
I reset the blinking (red light went off).
Transmitter started transmitting, but failed again 40 min later.

Started transmitting again for a while, but died again.
The blinking light came on again and the fault light was flashing.

I stopped mapr_display and cycled power on transmitter (as per
Bill's instructions). Fault light came back on. Then I cycled
through the other buttons and the fault light stopped blinking.


All other systems were unaffected.

changed MAPR mode to wind200_rass100 min at 1630 UTC

changed MAPR mode to wind200_rass100_30 min at 0920 UTC

changed MAPR mode to wind200_rass100 at 0300 UTC

changed MAPR mode to wind100_rass100 at 2230 UTC

MAPR hung up at 1000 UTC. I restarted MAPR when I arrived at the trailer
at 1915 UTC.

The QC criteria for MAPR data was loosened at 2200 UTC
March 20th to allow more data to be displayed to the web
pages (note: this also allows more bad data to make it
through to the web pages).

Switched MAPR mode to wind200_rass100_30min at 21:30 to get higher frequency
sounding information during the EOP.

MAPR didn't recognize the disk when it was initially plugged in.
Will reboot in an attempt to see if MPAR can access the disk.

Weak signal today. Changed MAPR to 200m mode at 19:18 UT (11:18am LT) Mar 15.

MAPR stopped running around 20Z. It took me a couple of hours to 
learn that after running it via the button, you have to choose 
restart and choose a configuration.

Operator error.

Restarted in the wind100_rass100 mode.

Weak signal since late afternoon. Changed MAPR to 200m mode for overnight IOP. Change made at 01:30 UT Mar 9 (17:30 PST Mar 8).

Good signal in the light precip so switching back to 100 m mode,
19:15 UT.

02:33 UT
Switched MAPR to 200m mode as the clear air retuurns are getting weak.
Getting some bird echoes unfortunately.

MAPR - changing back to 100 m mode to get better resolution since
we have good signal.

MAPR went down for unknown reasons last night.
Gary is investigating the cause.  
One possibility is the change to the raid for storage,
but it is unclear why this would cause a problem.
Restarted aroound 22 UT.

MAPR parameter set change to wind200_rass100 at 2:17 UT
due to weak clear air signal.
On 100m mode the only signal was a weak layer at 2km, but after
switching to 200m mode we started filling in some gate below that.
Still fairly weak though.

MAPR

Setup up 200 m mode.  
Only use this mode if signals are weak for a hour or two.
The downside to this mode is that it may smear the bird signals
more than the standard 100 m mode, but it should provide a little
boost to the atmospheric signal under weak scattering conditions.

Left MAPR running in the standard 100m mode for now as the signals
are strong (and very interesting with features at 3km that look
like K-H rolls).

Also slightly relaxed settings on consensus winds to match
DBS profiler winds.

Bill has arrived

MAPR wind directions corrected at about 19:42 UT (Feb 22)

0-1 side is at 310 deg east of true north
(corrected for magnetic declination of 14 degrees).

Previously was set at 39 degrees.


Rebooted MAPR 20UT

MAPR winds seem pretty good at the surface today, but the direction indicates they are out of the west where as the surface station is saying north. Maybe there is a low level wind shear? I see the tops of the mountains this afternoon look like the wind is blowing from the north. I don't think the antenna orientation in the software is correct. 

The SNR dropped this afternoon after Gary made a software mod. One of those mods which are unlikely to have effected anything, but none the less... It is also very hot in the container... I've turned the heat off at 00:30-22feb06 to see if things come back... :-(

So far it hasn't come back.

Another item that is noticable in the humidity trace is that it has smoothed out about 2300 hours. There were "oscillations" prior to that time in the humidity trace... That is about the same time the returns dropped to nill.