[Xastir] faster radar image updates?

[Gerry Creager]

Couple of additions/corrections.

NWS is progressing with "super-resolution" (250m) software on the 
WSR-88D systems, and has been for several months. Little fanfare goes 
into that.  However, the lower-resolution Level III data that most 
mosaics come from is going to remain at 1 km resolution.

RIDGE radar is in an evaluation period to transform ALL their pages to 
Level II and these will have super-res where/when it's available. 
Super-res comes at a couple of costs, though.

1.  Some platforms cannot tolerate increased rotation speed.  These will 
require up to 7 min to complete a volume scan.  A new volume scanning 
profile will give 0.5 deg elevations more frequently.
2.  Some radars will tolerate higher RPM scanning.  These will complete 
a volume scan every 5 min in storm/precip mode.  These, too, will scan 
at the lowest elevation several time in a "surveillence" sweep while 
acquiring a volume scan.
3.  Super-res is larger data, making processing take longer.
4.  The new software build changed the file naming process complicating 
regular expression parsing and making their capture and decoding more 
"interesting".
5.  NWS is upgrading both the path to the regions from the individual 
radar sites from 56k to 128k to accommodate the larger files.
6.  NWS is reconfiguring the network that handles the radar data to 
distribute it and to get it to the National Climatic Data Center to a 
higher-bandwidth Qwest path.

And, the file size increase is also a bit more than 16x... there's more 
elevations in the standard volume scan for Build 10, providing better 
resolution in vertical slicing too.

gerry

Brian Webster wrote:
> In most areas of the country no. The reason being that the mechanical radar
> units take at least 5 minutes to complete a sweep. I attended a skywarn
> meeting this winter and NOAA/NWS will be upgrading to phased Radar antenna
> arrays with electronic sweep actions thus eliminating the mechanical delay
> and also giving them the ability to quickly look at problem areas when
> needed. The resolution per pixel will also increase to 1/4 square kilometer,
> now the pixels are 1 square km. The problem with the new resolution is the
> size of the image files. Most NWS offices don't have enough bandwidth to
> serve the public with a file size increase of 16 times what they currently
> dish out.
> 
> 
> 
> Thank You,
> Brian N2KGC
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: xastir-bounces at lists.xastir.org
> [mailto:xastir-bounces at lists.xastir.org]On Behalf Of Jason KG4WSV
> Sent: Sunday, April 19, 2009 7:53 PM
> To: Xastir - APRS client software discussion
> Subject: [Xastir] faster radar image updates?
> 
> 
> Looks like the RIDGE radar images only update every 5 minutes or so.
> Is there a source for more frequently updated radar imagery that can
> be had in an xastir friendly format?
> 
> -Jason
> kg4wsv
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-- 
Gerry Creager -- gerry.creager at tamu.edu
Texas Mesonet -- AATLT, Texas A&M University
Cell: 979.229.5301 Office: 979.458.4020 FAX: 979.862.3983
Office: 1700 Research Parkway Ste 160, TAMU, College Station, TX 77843