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General Weather/Earth Sciences Topics => Lightning => Topic started by: relko on March 30, 2022, 05:07:09 AM
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After several frustrating delays I'm happy to announce that Microsferics TOA network lightning detectors are in stock and ready to ship.
The Microsferics TOA Lightning Detection Network (https://microsferics.com) is open without restrictions to participants in North/Central America and Europe.
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If this is all new to you: Microsferics has been operational since 2015 but due to personnel changes in 2019 and more recently, global microchip supply shortages, the lightning detection hardware had to be revised multiple times which caused delays in getting the product finalized.
Each shipped device comes fully assembled and tested. The Microsferics TCU V5 system operates standalone (no PC required for network connection) and connects to a network router via Ethernet cable.
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What you get:
✅ TOA Compute Unit Version 5 (TCU V5)
✅ Outdoor E-field sensor
✅ External GPS antenna (5m/15ft cable)
✅ International 12V power supply
Where you get it: https://astrogenic.com/shop/product_info.php?products_id=70
Note that some items such as RG58 or RG6 Sat TV coax cable, Ethernet cable and sensor enclosure are not included as these things can often be found at home already or sourced locally for a lower cost. Other than this, the Microsferics TCU V5 is entirely plug-and-play.
A Windows and Ubuntu/Debian/Mint PC software is freely available to all operators. This is used for optional wireless LAN monitoring and device configuration, although the device also has built-in onboard configuration options and doesn't really need monitoring at all.
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On our forum there are also official and third party PHP scripts available to participants for displaying localized lightning on a website.
If you have any questions feel free to post them below.
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Hi guys!
I’m so happy to see this has made it to prime time! I have enjoyed using this for the past 6 years. It’s plug and play, no soldering parts on to boards, and the support is outstanding. Also, no waiting on a list that spans months and years! Relko is always available to help with any questions or concerns.
Join the network and contribute your lightning data today! :)
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I have been involved in this project from the start in I believe 2015. There has been a difficult time due to the change of a technician, but fortunately the setbacks have been overcome. In addition, good technical progress has been made. The support is very good.
Microsferics is a wonderful project and I am still impressed that we detect very well with few stations.
I am still happy to participate in this project and have never regretted it. I hope we can welcome many new participants soon.
Brgds,
Oebel
Assen, the Netherlands
ASN1
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This is exciting to know another group is offering to help keep highly accurate location services up and running.
I have been trying to track lightning since the original Boltek stuff became available. Buying service from say WeatherTap or one of the Vaisala networks was so cost prohibitive.
I was within days of getting one of the original kits from Relko but got caught in the kerfluffle from his engineer.
Now I see another local weather enthusiast (Lorick) has a station up and running.
Two questions: With is system up, is there any benefit to this group by me putting another online only 4 miles away, other than the unlikely event his will go off line from some electrical power surge or getting a direct strike himself?
Second, as a supplier of data once a station is set up, what additional or better resolution data mapping is available, or are the plotted results available to the general public the same as what the station managers get? I would applaud the Microsferics group for making these plots available to all weather enthusiasts, but then I would wonder if those willing to put $500 USA towards a station might be hoping for a little something extra to sweeten the deal?
Dale
PS, one can NEVER have too many rain gauges, weather stations, or TOA stations.
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Hi Dale. Have two systems (JUP1 and JUP2) running within 20 miles of each other. The way it was explained to me is that it helps the network pick up strikes away from your area, but it won’t help nearby strikes because the system cancels out close strikes from stations that are too close to each other for the sake of accuracy.
However, if I hadn’t have added the second station, we would still be in a dead spot in the southeast, so it has helped. I count on distant stations to pick up strikes that are closer to me as my stations don’t count them.
Two questions: With is system up, is there any benefit to this group by me putting another online only 4 miles away, other than the unlikely event his will go off line from some electrical power surge or getting a direct strike himself?
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Thanks, Joe:
The problem with distant stations trying to triangulate the location is the azimuth error, even if tiny, becomes a huge factor at distance.
I've not seen nor read about how this system's designer has approached the math to try to filter out signals of less value. The ideal is to have equally scattered stations (not there yet, but with this new batch of equipment available the areas will start to fill in), and have the math pick the highest value, best condition to maximize accuracy.
To rule out a local station seeing a strike 3 miles away may have some value. It certainly doesn't when the strike is 100 miles away and with a good separation of another station so that the angle is maximized.
Flying for many decades using VORs at a distance was proof enough that close is good, and angles of wider separation is good. The factors I don't know are how the GPS timing signals can remove some of the observation error, with the timing available from GPS making the absolute best possible case something in the range of a kilometer anyway.
Lots that we don't know. I'm hoping for a ton of stations to come on line and we can compare. But your 20 miles apart stations (good for you!) would be far different from Lorrick's and mine being about 4 miles apart, when there are few stations within states of us.
I don't recall if you are a Blitz participant also, but I looked at the sferics site last afternoon, and at the TOA (used to be IBM associated) and to the Blitz sites. The facts for the time being (likely due to the lower number of stations) sferics was showing 1-3 strikes/minute, while Blitz with its hundreds of stations showing an almost blinding number of strikes, circles and reporting station lines to the storm that moved through your area (and was hitting the launch complex).
Until the spread and coverage of stations is more equal, the logic and rationale of the implementation of station filtering and more sophisticated code to pick the best of those stations reporting the same strike won't be known for sure, even if there IS a best approach. More than one way to skin a cat, you know.
I'd love to hear more (either official or word of mouth) how these places approach the processing and selection of signals to use. Knowing just enough to be dangerous, I believe long distance propagation of the strike gets mussed up by the various paths it can take. I think that the sweet spot is a couple hundred miles from the strike.
Dale
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I’m sure Relko will explain the technicalities of this far better than I can, but for longer range strikes, I’m hitting efficiencies of over 80% in most cases.
I am Blitzortung contributor as well. As soon as Microsferics gets more members up and running and filling in dead spots, the accuracy will be similar. The one really nice thing about this system is that it truly is plug and play(with some set up, but no soldering and such) and there are no waiting lists. Also Relko is very good at support whereas you don’t hear from the developers on Blitzortung very often.
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Dale: Both Microsferics and Blitzortung use Time (Difference) Of Arrival (ToA) for locating lightning. There are no angles involved hence no azimuth errors to account for, although the ToA method has of course its own set of problems. With ToA, each lightning signal is timestamped on the detecting site and the data processing server can then compute a geographical position by analyzing a batch of different timestamps and site locations.
The simplified schematic below illustrates the ToA principle where T1-4 lines/circles show "time of flight" from the point source (a lightning discharge) to the receiving sensor. The ToA solution is the intersection of 4 or more circles and when the position is known, an exact time of event can be determined as well.
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Uncertainty of a ToA solution (a.k.a. error) is determined by performing a reverse check; Somewhat simplified, for each site that was involved in deriving a ToA solution an expected time of detection is computed. The result is an ellipse that will vary in shape and size depending on how much the accumulated expected times are off. A small ellipse signifies good accuracy/high confidence and vice versa. Plotted on a map it would look like this:
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Generally two sites in close proximity is not a problem in most cases. If the error is large, the second site can be used to try to refine the solution. If the error is within some predetermined acceptable limits, both sites are counted as providers of the ToA solution.
The main issue, as JupiterJoe touched upon, is when lightning is very close or overhead two nearby sites. There are a lot of weak cloud discharges in an active thunderstorm which are only detectable when the lightning activity is within a few miles/kms. This "natural noise", while very useful for single point lightning detection (used in e.g. NexStorm as Noise Ranging Assist to improve close storm distance estimations) is harmful for ToA purposes. It will overload the sensors with lightning data that sites farther away cannot detect. This will render the sites useless for a period until the storm moves away. We have some methods of partially dealing with the problem such as auto-adjustable sensitivity that reduces unwanted weak signal detections. It's an area of ongoing research.
Moreover, the other site in Eau Claire, which has been online since the inception of the North American network, is currently a V4 variant which taps its signal data from the Boltek sensor. The new V5 system comes with its own custom E-field sensor. The V5 is generally more sensitive and will detect more lightning farther away (2x in some cases) compared to Boltek.
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Hello all. I'm thinking about purchasing one of the Microsferics TOA kits, but had some questions about antenna location and interference. Where can I find more details about optimum siting? The product page states the sensor "must be mounted some distance away from potential noise generating sources". How can I determine what might be a noise generating source? Would my solar panels be a noise generating source? Also, I need some help with "some distance". If I can get a good GPS signal, do I need to make sure I'm high enough to clear nearby houses and trees? Is there a website or some other resource available?
Also, I have attempted to register for the astrogenics forum. I received the initial welcome email but never got the follow-up email confirming acess.
Thank you!
-Chris
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Chris, I don't have a unit in hand yet, although it is on order.
I can perhaps give some general info to a couple of your site planning questions. If you have a portable car GPS you might take it to the area you are considering to see what sort of GPS constellation you geet after it is on for awhile and registering satellites. Mine will tell me how many, how 'good' the signal is from the satellite, and how many it calculates should be visible.
To refine it a bit, I have a Blitz unit running with the local unit's data visible on a little program provided by Blitz to do just that. A nice pattern of satellites (for two units when I had a Red, also) showed no time that a good solid constellation for determining position and of course, time, wasn't locked in. So if you can see most of the sky from say 30 degrees up, you are likely fine. Do a GPS (I have Garmins in the cars). I have a TOA unit that is on top of my shed and never got complaints from them unless I loose power and the UPS goes dead overnight, but they don't have as easily accessible health-o-meter as I call it to see what is going on.
Trees seem to make little difference for my units.
As far as noise, I'm speaking from the old Boltek ADF type system and the Blitz systems, and things like dimmer switches in the house, certain kinds of motors (mostly those I have in the shed like Skil Saw and all but my lights are now all LED in the garage and shed and so far, knock on wood, they aren't showering the area with noise. A neighbor 500' away sometimes welds and that really is a bad time.
Trying to use a noise sniffer wasn't easy for me to do and frankly I've forgotten what frequencies the other guys used to walk around looking for quite spots.
I can't comment on the forum access, since I've not had too much time to do much other than look at the US web page display for Microsferics right now.
Maybe some of the other guys (and gals?) with a station already on line could add more detail or email you directly. Hope this helps and is of some encouragement. Dale
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Hi Chris.
The higher the better and outside is best. Away from power lines, fluorescent lights, etc, and solar panels might cause some noise as well. I originally had mine outside and above the apex of the roof and it was great. I moved and now it’s in the attic, as far away from wires and electrical sources as possible. It still works very good. There is an ac air handler about 10 feet from it and it doesn’t seem to be too bad.
The gain and squelch are automatic, so if it does pick up noise, it adjusts. There is a sensitivity switch on the antenna itself, and I have had to set it to low because it can pick up much more noise that way. High sensitivity might be for a really quiet location.
You can walk around the house with a portable AM radio set to the lower frequencies and get some idea about noise sources.
As far as gps goes, mine is on an inside window sill and is in between two houses, but I never have a problem. It’s about 99.97% available.
You just have to do some testing in different spots. I usually do this before I find a permanent spot for the antenna.
I hope we can see you online with us, youd be in an area that’s in need of some stations for sure!
Joe
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Thank you Dale! This helps a lot. I've got a GPS signal app on my phone that provides the number of satellites and signal strength. Looking forward to reading what others have to say about potential noise sources and distance from those noise sources.
-Chris
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Thank you Joe! Glad to hear that an attic installation might be an option. I'll walk around with an AM radio this weekend and see what I discover.
-Chris
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Hi Chris,
A noise source is basically anything that runs on electricity. Fridges, washing machines, dish washers, AC's, or your friendly neighbor who covertly runs a furniture build shop with frequent use of power tools (personal experience). So "some distance" will be very site specific and depend on what kind of noise source are present in the area. Many noise sources are intermittent in nature and will not cause problems. For example, a water/pool pump, fridge cooling system etc. that turns on may generate a series of false detections for some milliseconds but will then go silent. A poorly shielded electric motor in e.g. a constantly running AC unit may on the other hand render the detector useless. It is impossible to predict suitability of a site and as JupiterJoe recommended, utilizing an AM radio is a good method for identifying noisy areas or finding quiet spots.
Attic installation is okay as long as there are no major metallic or concrete structures that may interfere with E-field reception. Wood, brick, plaster etc. are all fine in that respect.
As for solar panels, I am surrounded with houses that have roof mounted solar panels with the closest one being less than 30 ft away. Some intermittent noise is not uncommon although in my experience this noise is relatively weak and easily dealt with by increasing the squelch slightly or lowering gain by 1x, or just let the automatic feature adjust this for you. I'm running my sensor in high sensitivity mode in an area that is very active in terms of noises.
GPS reception is usually not a problem. My own GPS external antenna is laying on the floor in my office near a glass door looking out towards the garden. It is sometimes moved around randomly in the room or turned upside down by the vacuum robot (or wife) and I have not lost signal once in 4+ years.
Concerning your forum sign-up: It appears that one of the forum admins inadvertently deleted your account thinking it was spam. Please try again, I have flagged the user name you used to sign up as legitimate so this shouldn't happen again. Sorry for the inconvenience.
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Thank you Relko. Very helpful. I think I've got a few good options for placement, so I placed the order last night. Looking forward to contributing to the network.
-Chris
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For those that have the Microsferics TOA kit, how long should it take to ship to the United States? I ordered the kit and accessories on April 12, 2022. The last update on the shipper's website is April 19, 2022.
Thanks.
-Chris
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It took about a month to make it to me. Where does the tracking info say it is?
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I'm at a month now. I know shipping can take longer these days, so I'm not in panic mode yet. The last post on the Austrian Post tracking site says "Item handed over at the airport 04:30 Postal code ATVIEA" It looks like they lost visibility once they handed it over at the airport.
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I'm at a month now. I know shipping can take longer these days, so I'm not in panic mode yet. The last post on the Austrian Post tracking site says "Item handed over at the airport 04:30 Postal code ATVIEA" It looks like they lost visibility once they handed it over at the airport.
I have forwarded this case to my partner in Austria who is handling the shipping, will keep you updated via email. If it turns out to be lost we'll send a new unit, no need to panic.
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It took a long time from when it was handed over to the airport to when it popped back up in the United States.
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Joe, according to my tracking records the last two packages sent to US by AT post took 7 days from "handed over" to "arrived in country of destination". A month with no activity raises some warning flags and needs to be investigated.
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Oh, i thought me meant it was a month total, from order to now.
Joe, according to my tracking records the last two packages sent to US by AT post took 7 days from "handed over" to "arrived in country of destination". A month with no activity raises some warning flags and needs to be investigated.
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I'm hoping the delay that I experienced from when mine arrived in the USA until the post office finally delivered it (quite safely, nicely packaged) to me can move along. Nothing that Microsferics can do about that hitch, which must be customs and the USPS. I think, if memory serves me correctly) that it was in the USA but not going anywhere, lasted at least a week, then finally got moving towards the midwest where I am.
We certainly need more stations and I hope that the ease of setting up the stations and coming on the air quickly will attract those with interest. I have three, well four, different lightning type stations and the experience of the first ones of course helps, but I was impressed with how easy it was to set up and having gotten a few little things out of the way, was up quickly.
If you are at all on the fence about getting a station and participating in this hobby and contributing to the overall data gathering that this project offers, I'd strongly encourage you to jump on board.
Dale
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Thank you all for the input. Joe and Dale, did you have any tracking information when it arrived in the US? All I have is the Austrian Post tracking number.
Relko, thank you for looking into this. Hopefully Johann will be able to provide additional information.
I'm looking forward to contributing to the network.
-Chris
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If I remember correctly, it transferred to usps tracking once it got here. But it took a while.
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I had the initial info from Relko, and the notification that it had been transferred to the USPS, but I did not get an automatic notification from USPS. Somehow Relko was able to get that number, and then he sent that along to me. That did the trick, but I don't know how he got it, perhaps as the registered sender and not me as the intended recipient.
Hope that helps, and I hope that Relko has the connections to make that work for you.
Dale
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I'm signed up for USPS Informed Delivery, so I get email notifications for any packages that will be arriving via USPS. Hoping to get an email soon for the TOA kit.
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I am happy to report that my Microsferics TOA kit arrived sometime last night! Now I need to find time to set it up - probably next weekend.
-Chris
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I am happy to report that my Microsferics TOA kit arrived sometime last night! Now I need to find time to set it up - probably next weekend.
-Chris
Excellent news.
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Hi Chris, did you ever get a chance to get it installed?
I am happy to report that my Microsferics TOA kit arrived sometime last night! Now I need to find time to set it up - probably next weekend.
-Chris
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I'm not sure how I missed this, but it looks exciting!
I'm really interested in purchasing one, so I have a few questions..
Do you ship to the UK?
"A properly installed system will detect lightning strikes thousands of kilometers/miles away."
Do you have any accuracy stats? For example; a 1000 mile radius?
Many thanks!
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Chris:
Like JupiterJoe, I'm curious as to your station's status.
I found mine was very easy to set up and get on the network.
The more stations, the better, and especially at the early stages.
PLEASE, if there is anything that is holding you up (other than health, family, etc. about which we can not really help), let us know. If you're unsure about something, or something just didn't work when you expected it to, let him or me know and we'll get as much support as we can in order to expand the network here in the US.
Dale
PS, feel free to private message, too. Well, at least me and I'm sure he'd not mind either.
Dale
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Mapantz:
I'm not sure about shipping to the UK, but he did to the US, and I think they are based in Germany or Austria.
If you can't get info from their web site, let me know and I'll look for a link for you Dale
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Mapantz:
I'm not sure about shipping to the UK, but he did to the US, and I think they are based in Germany or Austria.
If you can't get info from their web site, let me know and I'll look for a link for you Dale
Hi Dale
I don't see any exclusions to the UK, but things have changed since we left the European Union, and it has made shipping rather tricky.
In the drop-down for shipping, it has "Europe" technically, the UK is in Europe, but not the EU. :lol:
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I can't keep stuff straight here, say nothing about the agreements over there, the EU and who's a member and such.
I'd just go to the microsferic's page and ask. I usually got an answer very quickly. It took me a bit to get the unit, but it was almost all tied up in shipping and once it got here things stopped for a week for who knows what reason.
Let other readers know what you find out. Dale
https://forum.astrogenic.com/
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Chris:
Like JupiterJoe, I'm curious as to your station's status.
I found mine was very easy to set up and get on the network.
The more stations, the better, and especially at the early stages.
PLEASE, if there is anything that is holding you up (other than health, family, etc. about which we can not really help), let us know. If you're unsure about something, or something just didn't work when you expected it to, let him or me know and we'll get as much support as we can in order to expand the network here in the US.
Dale
PS, feel free to private message, too. Well, at least me and I'm sure he'd not mind either.
Dale
Dale and Joe, unfortunately I have not been able to get it set up yet - too many kids' activities this time of year. I'm hoping to get to it this weekend in between games. Thank you for checking in and for the offer to help. I will take you up on that if I run into any problems.
-Chris
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Chris,
Thanks for the update and I hope our enthusiasm wasn't seeming to be too intrusive. Life goes on, with or without lightning detectors!
Dale
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Hi Dale
I don't see any exclusions to the UK, but things have changed since we left the European Union, and it has made shipping rather tricky.
In the drop-down for shipping, it has "Europe" technically, the UK is in Europe, but not the EU. :lol:
you will be the rest of the world pay more shipping, plus you'll be hit by customs (VAT) on top of that price., unless you live in NI like me as we come under the EU and UK \:D/
try emailing them and get the price of shipping down perhaps. I just shipped a part from Australia and it was a large package. 5 day delivery with DHL express was about £36 and no VAT tax since we are now in a trade trade agreement with AUS ;)
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you will be the rest of the world pay more shipping, plus you'll be hit by customs (VAT) on top of that price., unless you live in NI like me as we come under the EU and UK \:D/
try emailing them and get the price of shipping down perhaps. I just shipped a part from Australia and it was a large package. 5 day delivery with DHL express was about £36 and no VAT tax since we are now in a trade trade agreement with AUS ;)
But it says "Europe" Not "EU" which is what it'd be classed as. In either case, when I go to the checkout, it says "GB"
I've posted on the forum 3 hours ago, but no reply.
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I've posted on the forum 3 hours ago, but no reply.
Relko usually answers posts earlier in the day Spain time. He’ll get back to you. :)
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Just wondering how users are getting on with this?
I haven't bought one yet, but still considering it..
Does anyone have their own website showing any data?
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I've been monitoring https://microsferics.com as there's plenty of storms around the UK at the moment. One thing I have noticed, is that it shows a lot of false strikes in areas of no precipitation. It also misses a lot of strikes when comparing to the ATD lightning from the Met Office. That puts me off purchasing one.
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I've been monitoring https://microsferics.com as there's plenty of storms around the UK at the moment. One thing I have noticed, is that it shows a lot of false strikes in areas of no precipitation. It also misses a lot of strikes when comparing to the ATD lightning from the Met Office. That puts me off purchasing one.
So because this is a growing network, dead spots will be an issue until the network grows. Once areas fill in, dead spots will minimize.
As for false strikes, when you have less than 5-6 detectors picking up a particular strike, this can happen. On the map, click options, then choose plot 5 or 6 sensor toa’s. This will vastly increase the accuracy, however you will see less strikes, although it will be less false strikes.
Try to remember that since this is a growing network that needs more stations online for accuracy, that you should have a little patience until more sensors come online. I’ve been around since the beginning, and I live in an area with abundant lightning, but I was in a dead spot for years. Patience is hard, but it’s paying off. Now that more stations have come online, we’re doing pretty good, although not perfect, today.
I understand your reluctance, but it takes people like you and I, willing to make the jump to watch this grow into something special. Every new sensor that comes online improves the network.
I hope this helps.
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MaPantz:
I can only echo the words from JupiterJoe,
I have not had as much activity as I'd like, and the solution is more stations, especially in the Midwest in the USA. I'm not sure how to get the word out, but hopefully weather enthusiasts will get on board. The setup is really pretty easy!
When the Blitzortung project was getting underway there were very few stations here in the USA. One poor chap out in Hawai'i had a very low participation count, as you can imagine. Even though there have been growing pains, and the hardware needs to be assembled (including some fine but easily enough done with patience soldering of a few components) the number of stations in that network has grown a lot, and now is over 300, I think, at last look. The coverage for the USA is pretty good, but even so there will be a strike near me and I'll look at the map and nothing. I know many strikes are just not sensed, submitted and then the central computers can do their things. Also I think there are differences in cloud to ground vs. cloud to cloud and some are not possible to detect, or are ignored by design.
Like the old saying goes, a society (weather project) grows great when old men plant a tree (put up a station) which they know they will never sit in the shade of (see the end result show lots of strikes.)
Even though I'm pretty old, I hope to feed data to both networks and make the hobby as a group or team effort have great participants.
My encouragement can only go so far, but there really is minimal work once you get the box installed, hooked up to the internet (I put mine on an uninterruptable power supply and have had no problems) and the one sense antenna mounted.
Go for it, and maybe not in a few months, but over some time this will blossom! Dale