Author Topic: Really quiet day today  (Read 840 times)

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Offline n2qew

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Really quiet day today
« on: January 25, 2015, 10:05:52 AM »
I was looking at the signals page today, and in addition to 0 strikes, I noticed that many of the stations had really low counts - single and two digits in many cases. The atmosphere in region 3 just seems really calm.

Offline Dr Obbins

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Re: Really quiet day today
« Reply #1 on: January 25, 2015, 10:38:48 AM »
Yea.. Currently "0" strikes. As mentioned in another thread, this is a good time for cleaning things up. Sorting by signals, one station has over 85,000 signals sent and not one of them is a confirmed strike. There a few others that need looking into also.

Offline Cutty Sark Sailor

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Re: Really quiet day today
« Reply #2 on: January 25, 2015, 02:20:16 PM »
Excellent suggestion Dave...
Just added 1272, Santee California to active stations on
the Region 3 Signal Tools page....
http://frankfortweather.us/BoStaSig/
This might help in tracking down 'signal noise', etc....
Right now, if you're generating more than about a thousand, you're running too high, or you've got excessive noise.

Now, note that not all of your signals are in error.... some ARE sferics, they just are very far away, perhaps, and not detected by other stations... particularly you folks on the coasts...

I monitored your station, Dave, in a window next to mine for several hours the other day... amazing how many signals you and I both had that were NOT, apparently, strokes as recognized, but could NOT have been 'local' interference.  Folks oughta try that... open 2 windows on the 'signals' page, and compare your signals with those of someone at 50-150 miles of your location, for e.g.   ... you may get a surprise especially if you're trying to track 'noise'.
There will be some differences between stations, for display, because of the 'sampling' times of the page server, but after a bit, especially if your controller is nearby and you can see the 'signal' orange light flash.... you can correlate....

If you can't follow me on this, I'm sorry... If you can, you'll learn some things that will make you feel better, and help you optimize your settings....

Mike
 


Offline Dr Obbins

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Re: Really quiet day today
« Reply #3 on: January 25, 2015, 03:14:20 PM »
I see what you mean about common signals. If both our stations are receiving it, then it is probably not my heater kicking in. This is probably where a better saturation of stations will help to confirm these weak signals.

Offline n2qew

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Re: Really quiet day today
« Reply #4 on: January 29, 2015, 12:01:14 PM »
The multiple window thing is pretty interesting. I don't have any other stations within several hundred miles, but I compared with one in TN. On a quiet day like today, sometimes a minute can go by with neither of us posting anything. Many times after a quiet period, both stations end up with remarkably similar waveforms.

Another interesting thing is the timing. There's 412 miles between me and the TN station. That's about 2.2 ms. Some of the timestamps indicate the timing difference is that value with mine being earlier. That would mean the source would likely be east of me. Others are less than 2 ms, which should mean that the source is somewhere between us. There's no US lightning on the map today.