Topic: Network in Action! NEW

[Maumelle Weather]

Saw that too last night, Mike. Station 913 is testing in Switzerland before going to Brazil. Incredible.

[gwwilk]

With all of the lightning near here this morning, this display is phenomenal.  A new switch to me (I didn't see it yesterday, anyway) is 'Stations'.  Turn it on, and you can see the stations that contributed to the strike in near real-time as the green lines radiate out from the strike to the contributing stations!  But you guys probably already knew that...

[DaleReid]

The data were already available from the strikes but us ordinary folk had no way of taking it and displaying it as we now are experiencing.  It's been already said how 'cool' it is to have this visualization.  I don't know about other users, but I had an ongoing question as to whether or not the strikes I send to the server were actually being used, and how did I compare (yeah, a man thing) to the other users sending data, beyond the efficiency statistics.

Now, in real time or nearly so, I can see my station participate.  Sort of like watching your kid or someone you know play ball, puts a bit more interest in it.

My son (who does NOT play ball) wandered by and wondered what I was doing.  I showed him and he indeed thought it was cool, so I guess the intergenerational gap has been spanned by Tobi.

But he almost immediately pointed out that it looks a lot like the Star Trek movies, (with their bigger production CGI budgets and high resolution) with battles that displayed the star ships moving and maneuvering very close to one another, with lasers or whatever those things were they fired at one another, sort of tracking as they moved past one another during a battle.  And I have to agree it sort of does remind me of that, especially when there are two or more cells some distance or states apart and the participation-indicator lines 'paint' the strike.

Does it make the data better?  I don't think so, but I'm still fascinated by the circles (I assume sort of like the DOP on GPS signals) and the visualization of what is going on.

What fun.  And I really don't think it will end up being something we'll ignore in the future, I doubt it will grow old for me.

[DaleReid]

Klingons?

What's changed this morning?  A few minutes ago there were only green participation lines.

Just now, before trying to go work, I looked again, just one more peek.  Now from some of the areas south of the big Nebraska storms there are BLUE lines coming in?  Non-Federation ships?  Anyone know what the implication of the color difference is?
Dale

[DaleReid]

One more benefit of this display that just became visible is being able to see how close a station can be and still participate without being knocked out by signals from close storms.

I was watching the Omaha storm, and good ol' 798 began to participate in the storm a hundred miles or so to the east of him, despite a large storm just passing and still very close.

A side benefit to having this new capability.

Are there more things you've discovered and may not be obvious to the rest of us yet?
Dale

[Cutty Sark Sailor]

Are there more things you've discovered and may not be obvious to the rest of us yet?
Dale

"We're not gonna tell you, we're not gonna tell you, we're not gonna tell you..."   

[JonathanW]

Klingons?

What's changed this morning?  A few minutes ago there were only green participation lines.

Just now, before trying to go work, I looked again, just one more peek.  Now from some of the areas south of the big Nebraska storms there are BLUE lines coming in?  Non-Federation ships?  Anyone know what the implication of the color difference is?
Dale

Polarization or E- vs.  M- field detection?

[DaleReid]

The color links seem regional, that is green above and blue below.  E field would be shorter distance, and these are indicating participation stations from some distance away.

[gwwilk]

One more benefit of this display that just became visible is being able to see how close a station can be and still participate without being knocked out by signals from close storms.

I was watching the Omaha storm, and good ol' 798 began to participate in the storm a hundred miles or so to the east of him, despite a large storm just passing and still very close.

A side benefit to having this new capability.

Are there more things you've discovered and may not be obvious to the rest of us yet?
Dale

798, that's me.  I've been running in 'Automatic' and 'Filtered' Modes for the past week or so with excellent results that far exceed what I was able to achieve in Manual mode.  Currently my 'B' channel is stuck at 2*1*40 amplification, but overall performance is so good that I'm just going to leave it for now.

[Dr Obbins]

The color links seem regional, that is green above and blue below.  E field would be shorter distance, and these are indicating participation stations from some distance away.

I believe the color has to do with the distance from the station to the strike. 

[jmcmurry]

Watching mine, I'm thinking one antenna vs the other.

- Jim

[DaleReid]

Captains Log:

The Blues seem to be taking over. I, and a few remaining northern stations in the alliance, seem to be the only green stations participating.

Initially, we were all green.  Then, without warning, the conversion to Blue began.  Now, it seems other than a few strongholds left, almost all others are blue.

I wondered if it was indicating a degree of efficiency, but Jim at Mauston with his high levels remained strongly green, no hint of blue.

Then I wondered if it was ferrite vs. loop or ball antennas?  So far I've not been able to research it enough to prove this, but with a large number of ferrites out there, I can't imagine they number so few on the display.

Since I'm still green and running a RED board, and the Rochester MN site is a green board and also showing green, this theory seems false.

My only hope is that we can hold out long enough to find out what has crept into the system to explain this blue conversion.

I hope I can survive being green before blue overcomes me.

[DaleReid]

Well, I've seen Jim in Mauston paint a Green and a Blue, so it must be distance from the station.

With the stations south of the Omaha and Evansville storms being distant they would be blue.  Those of us a wee bit closer to the action would be green.

Is the mystery solved or is this a false theory that seems to fit the data?

[Cutty Sark Sailor]

Green=<500km  Blue=>500km

[DaleReid]

Hey, you weren't supposed to tell us.

Thanks.

Anything else to divulge while we have you under oath and on the stand?

[Cutty Sark Sailor]

Hey, you weren't supposed to tell us.

Thanks.

Anything else to divulge while we have you under oath and on the stand?

Naw.. pay more attention to what Dr. Obbins suggests... he told you several posts above. 

[dfroula]

The nodes and interconnects reminds me of old telephone switch routing diagrams, back in the days of hierarchical circuit switching, before everything became packetized!

Don
WD9DMP

[Fox_Of_The_Wind]

I see the lighting dector only comes in a kit forum....to bad I am lucky I can program my cell phone let alone solder something

I do see there are some in Wisconsin that have one now....might be a over kill if I would have one anyway.

[Dr Obbins]

Hey, you weren't supposed to tell us.

Thanks.

Anything else to divulge while we have you under oath and on the stand?

Naw.. pay more attention to what Dr. Obbins suggests... he told you several posts above. 

It was either distance or Klingons vs Romulans - just a lucky guess.

[DaleReid]

Doc,
Well, there was speculation as to board color, antenna type, etc.

I thought the most logical explanation was Klingons....

This is all fun, hope no one takes things too seriously

I do note now that hovering over the stations selector says something about shade of blue.

My browser kept the stations selected as ON, so I didn't have to go near the button to hover.

Still neat.  That is one heck of a storm in southern Iowa now.

[Dr Obbins]

Doc,
I thought the most logical explanation was Klingons....

This is all fun, hope no one takes things too seriously

I was enjoying you Star Trek commentary. My kids are all grown up.

[corwyyn]

If you zoom in all the way, you can also see circles that, I assume, represent some standard deviation(s) of error in strike placement.

I would say you are correct.  After watching the system for some time last night and today it appears that the more stations report a strike from various angles the tighter the 'error ring' around a strike will be.  I also noticed that the system seems to update those in batches, probably at an interval that is dependent on the amount of activity in the network i.e. more strikes = longer interval between error updates but I could be wrong.  I just know that I was watching and trying to time how long it took to get the error determination for a few strikes when the system updated and the rings appeared around multiple strikes simultaneously.   

[DaleReid]

Dear Mr. Wind,
Or Fox, if that isn't too informal.

I understand that in Europe, especially Germany where this program got started, there are more stations than beer steins.  I am no expert, just look at my questions, but it is my understanding that the more stations, the better.  If someone is off line with internet problems, with being knocked out by a storm, or whatever, your station might be feeding info the same as another guy a few blocks away until he tripped over the cord.  And while distant strikes at a poor look angle don't get much improvement from a duplicate report just a little ways from each other, at certain angles there is a good contribution to the solution of where the strike is.

Everyone can speak for themselves, but my opinion is that:  More stations the better.  There is an expense but if you fish this pales in comparison to tackle bait, boats, motors, storage and beer.  The kit really was easier to assemble than I thought, but if you have little or no experience, it would be tough to find the place that a ham-handed assembly was botched and then correct without ruining a component or the board trace.  So perhaps in the case of someone anxious about their ability, look around for a local ham and be frank, saying you need some assembly work done, and just because he thinks he's a ham he can do it, I'd ask how long has he been a ham and has he built kits from Heathkit in the past, assembled his own projects, etc.  You want quality help and if you ask pointedly but politely, you are entitled to know how experienced the guy is.  Sort of like asking your surgeon how many of a particular procedure s/he's done.  Your body, you have a right to know, and they expect to be asked nowadays.

I have had so much fun since staring on this project.  Not only relearning the soldering and setup and all, but annoying the hell out of the others here with my incessant questions.  Not only do I know more now, but there is a response history that others might reference.  And almost all the chaps here are wonderful, except for a few and you know who you are, don't you?  JUST KIDDING!

To have access to much of the better detail and zoomability and all is dependent (for now unless the system originators decide differently) upon being an active member.

So don't stand on the outside of the window looking in.  Open the door and come on it.

[DaleReid]

Fox of the Wind:

I just looked up where DeSoto is, and I'm thinking you would be a great addition to the midwest.  The nearest would be Jim up in Mauston, me in Eau Claire, a station in Appleton who's owner's name isn't on the tip of my tongue, and a Rochester MN station and one up on the other side of the Twin Cities.  Then a few in northern Illinois.

I'm thinking from the European situation that we're actually very sparse here, and the system architects have been hoping for a very high density of stations, so give it some good hard thought.  Dale

[Cutty Sark Sailor]

If you zoom in all the way, you can also see circles that, I assume, represent some standard deviation(s) of error in strike placement.

I would say you are correct.  After watching the system for some time last night and today it appears that the more stations report a strike from various angles the tighter the 'error ring' around a strike will be.  I also noticed that the system seems to update those in batches, probably at an interval that is dependent on the amount of activity in the network i.e. more strikes = longer interval between error updates but I could be wrong.  I just know that I was watching and trying to time how long it took to get the error determination for a few strikes when the system updated and the rings appeared around multiple strikes simultaneously.   

Actually, the system doesn't work on "angles" per se.  Not being a world-class mathematician and program developer as Egon and Tobias specifically, I might explain it this way:
Being Time of Arrival, rather than DF, pulses created by the stroke are plotted where a series of hyperbolic curves would intersect, based upon the times of arrival at any series of stations, each station receiving a different GPS time stamp.
At the server, High Class Mathematics generate a different curve for each station,  best 8 or so win the race (in the U.S.) and Mr. and Mrs. Algorithms twink their magic twangers and plot the location.  The actual position N/S/E/W of the station to the stroke is irrelevant, which is why they say the actual orientation of the H field antennas does not matter. (And the single E field probe will,  of course, be omnidirectional and mounted vertically).

Assuming you are referring to the white dot/red circle of the 'real-time' map, the 'relocation' of any dots is actually an artifact of your computer processing the data from the German servers. The location is already 'decided' by the time the server generates the image data for this plot... So, for your purposes, you could say that the location is being refined, but it would only pertain to your particular computer screen. 

Hoping I haven't goofed this after a nice busy Mother's Day with the spouse of 43yrs... 

Mike