I'm the author of NexStorm. Below are links to screenshots of my own Boltek/NexStorm system for a few different active days in 2008 and 2009, all except one showing storms within 100 km range. The NexStorm lightning data is compared to the Swedish national lightning detection network and doppler radar via the inset images. There was no calibration used other than directional antenna alignment. Only the last image was generated by replaying archived data, all the others were captured in real-time. The last screenshot shows lightning strikes captured very close to my location which eventually forced me to shut down my Boltek system and prevented further tracking. The associated inset image is 10 minutes more recent than the NexStorm screenshot and shows a strike cluster over a location which on the NexStorm map corresponds to the Arlanda Intl. airport symbol. The airport is roughly 3 kilometers away from the antenna location as the crow flies. The last recorded strike in NexStorm was ranged at 3 kilometers, as evident by the reading in the last strike bearing indicator in the upper right corner of the user interface.
http://www.astrogenic.com/images2/comp/20080613_SMHI.pnghttp://www.astrogenic.com/images2/comp/20080707_SMHI.pnghttp://www.astrogenic.com/images2/comp/20080712m_SMHI.pnghttp://www.astrogenic.com/images2/comp/20090703_smhi.pngNow, how about we see some actual DATA comparisons from the L2K proponents? That is, instead of the repeated unsubstantiated claims about L2K being more accurate, or worse, having to read unedited advertisement crap pasted directly from Aninoquisi's web site?
To make it clear, I am not trying to sway anyone into buying my software but hopefully the above will be sufficient to disprove the false claims being spread here that L2K is generally more accurate than NexStorm for close storm ranging. I am not disputing that for some users L2K may be more accurate than NexStorm. But, it is important to realize that the reverse is also true in at least as many other cases. Making generic statements that one software has a clear advantage over the other in terms of accuracy, as some characters have done here repeatedly, is pure nonsense. Sometimes it may simply be down to differences in how a person interprets the on-screen information, in other cases it may be that one software works better than the other in certain types of environments. Nothing strange about that but you won't know for sure until you try both. Contrary to L2K, NexStorm is available as a free and fully working Lite edition which will detect lightning and enable the user to determine the accuracy and even learn how to tweak and calibrate the software all he or she wants, for as long as he or she wants with no commitment towards buying anything from me. Try doing that with L2K which has the core function (e.g. lightning detection) completely disabled in their demo. Extremely mystifying if you ask me, what could there be to hide with such a superior piece of software?
Lastly, neither L2K, nor for that matter NexStorm, can determine flashes with any kind of certainty by analyzing LD-250 data. Unlike the StormTracker PCI card the LD-250 does not provide access to raw signal data which makes it impossible to analyze signal waveforms. Such an analysis is essential for genuine determination of flash events. The only (partial) way around this limitation is to use a pseudo-analysis based on statistics, e.g. classifying multiple strokes as a flash if they occured within N milliseconds in a certain direction. There is simply no other way of doing it with the LD-250. I've been using this very technique, initially named
Negative return stroke detection, in NexStorm since 2004. It is documented in public discussions on our old, now defunct (but still available online) support forum, and also in the
V1.22 readme file issued on 20 Nov, 2004.
As for the remaining L2K advertisment junk, I won't claim to know exactly what the "nearby flash technology" means but given the overall description it sounds suspiciously like something that utilizes the natural noises produced by thunderstorms to improve ranging of individual strokes/flashes. If true then it is neither a particularly new feature nor a "revolutionary advance" in anything other than feature copying. It might have been revolutionary back in 2004 though, when it was first added as an experimental feature in NexStorm and called
Noise assisted ranging.
-Relko