Blog from July, 2008

Sonic 2b stopped around 15:30 PDT, July 10, and restarted around 4:43, July 10.

Upwind

Downwind1 Note that 5b,6b and 4b were out of order in the wide array (first configuration), and put back in order in the medium,low array (second config).

 Downwind2 (two dead ports, ttyS7, ttyS14)

 Profile

The script $ISFF/projects/AHATS/ISFF/scripts/merge.sh merges the network and local data storage files.

I've started it running for the period Jun 25 - Jul 8 00:00 on the isff system.

It reads input files from /net/media/isff2/projects/AHATS/raw_data and writes output files to /media/isff3/projects/AHATS/merge. 

 Once it finishes we can run statsproc on the merged files.

AHATS daily status 7/09/08

Staff: Semmer, Horst, Khoung, McIntyre; Maclean left this morning

Summary:

We moved the Vaisala barometer from the PAM pressure port to the fast
pressure reference cylinder last night.  It appears that the reference
cylinder pressure follows the diurnal cycle of ambient pressure (although
we no longer have an independent measure of ambient pressure).
Today we are testing for leaks by blowing into the reference line
to overpressure it and watching for a decay in pressure indicating a
leak.  Steve found one obvious leak where a tee was used instead of a
straight through junction.

Steve has repaired the bad 'filter' boards so that we now have 14 good
pressure/temperature signals, albeit apparently poor pressure data due
to leaks on the reference side.

For more details, see the ahats logbook at https://wiki.ucar.edu/display/ahatslogbook

Good wind direction: For the period 7/7 12:30 through 7/9 12:30, we have
only 5.25 hours (11%) of good data.  We no longer are getting good wind
directions either day or night.

Local data storage: (7/9/08)
------------------
Filesystem           1k-blocks      Used Available Use% Mounted on
root@upwind root# df | grep usbdisk
/dev/sda1             57685532   1198288  56487244   2% /var/tmp/usbdisk
root@downwind1 root# df
/dev/sda1             57685532    347476  57338056   1% /var/tmp/usbdisk
root@downwind2 root# df
/dev/sda1             57685532    425008  57260524   1% /var/tmp/usbdisk
root@profile root# df | grep usbdisk
/dev/sda1             57685532   1133292  56552240   2% /var/tmp/usbdisk
root@pressure1 root# df | grep usbdisk
/dev/sda1              3940812    396592   3544220  10% /var/tmp/usbdisk
root@pressure2 root# df | grep usbdisk
/dev/sda1              3940812    395692   3545120  10% /var/tmp/usbdisk

Pressure:
--------
Diurnal variation of fast pressure is an order of magnitude less
than ambient pressure.

p: all channels ok as of 10 am PDT this morning
t: all channels ok as of 10 am PDT this morning

A variety of pressure tests were conducted on the pressure lines. Th first was a check of the reference cell. There appeared to be a very slow leak. The main line was tested a major leak was found. It was at the end of the line where a tee was instead of a straight coupler. This was fixed around 2:30 pm.; We will see what happens over the next few hours.

The interface board being used for 11B had a bad RJ45 connector. This was fixed and the board was installed at Pressure2. PARO 11B was attached and data looks good. This occurred around 10:00am local.

A modified interface board for 11B, Pressure2,  was added this morning. Based on Gordon's data_dump function the pressure and temperature data looked good with little noise.

The pocketecs, #2 and #11, at downwind1 and downwind2 were removed this morning and new ones put in. Data being copied to base disk.

The wireless link from Downwind2 was down this morning. It went down around 1 am. Power was recycled on the EtherAnt and the link came back to life.

eanth is down, which means downwind2, pressure2 and upwind are not reporting.

 Again the log on the ap24 shows "extensive data loss" at 08:48 UTC:

 ssh admin@ap24eth
log
print
...
 08:48:42 wireless,info 00:20:F6:05:24:85@wlan2-Ext-Ant: disconnected, extensive data loss
/quit

In order to investigate whether the reference pressure system is working correctly,  the Vaisala barometer was removed from the profile tower and installed next to the reference pressure tank.  It is connected to the reference tube via a 1/16 inch T connector near where the line goes underground to the tank.  The barometer data cable is connnected to ttyS17 on downwind2.  The pressure variable is called Pref.  The data appears at  18:22 PDT, Jul 8.  So, at this point we have no ambient air pressure.  A second Vaisala PTB is being shipped from Boulder.

The barometer was removed around 18:00, July 8. The replacement barometer was installed around 10:30 am, July 10.

ptec#1 was removed from profile on Jul 8.  It showed errors when downloading with copy_usbdisk.sh, so I did a bb_fsck.sh on it.  As of 8:20 pm it was still running.

ptec#5 was removed from upwind later on Jul 8. It still needs to be downloaded.

To download data from a pocketec or usb pen drive, do the following:

1. Plug the drive into the 1 spare port on the isff system (latitude D830) 
2. On isff, do

   copy_usbdisk.sh AHATS
   

3. When it finishes, power down the pocketec and remove.

It copy_usbdisk.sh reports errors, then you should do a complete bad block check of the drive. Insert the drive in isff, and do:

 bb_fsck.sh

The bb_fsck.sh command takes about 5 hours to complete on a 60 Gbyte pocketec.

Here are the sensor ids of the ParoScientific sensors and the frequency counter board numbers and the input pin numbers.

Note that 7t is on pressure1 and 7b is on pressure2.  Also notice that ids in the 3000's are not at the top height.

pressure1

pressure2

To display data for a given id, do (this example is for temperature from 3b)

data_dump -i 5,2034 -L sock:aster

If you are running on an adam, the data_dump is an older version, do:

data_dump -d 5 -s 2034 -L sock:localhost

AHATS daily status 7/08/08

Staff: Maclean, Horst, Khoung, McIntyre; Semmer arrived today

Summary:

We will count July 7 12:30 PDT as the new start of (good) operations.

A revised configuration schedule, accounting for the start and stop
times of reconfiguration days:

Config  z (m)   S (m)   Dates   Length
1       3-4     4       7/7-15  8.7 days
2       3-4     1.3     7/18-23 6.6 days
3       7-8     1.3     7/25-30 6.6 days
4       7-8     0.43    8/2-9   8.6 days

Gordon replaced the serial board in the downwind-2 adam, which should
eliminate the outages we have been experiencing there.

For more details, see the ahats logbook at https://wiki.ucar.edu/display/ahatslogbook

Good wind direction: For the period 7/7 12:30 through 7/8 12:30, we have
only 3.33 hours (14%) of good data.  We no longer are getting good wind
directions either day or night.

Pressure:
--------
11b not connected. Pressure, but not temperature, bad at 9t.
Diurnal variation of fast pressure is an order of magnitude less
than ambient pressure.

Profiles:
---------
Missing data 17:30 - 18:50, July 7 (power outage at trailer)

diag: spikes around 14:30, July 7.
samples.sonic: same spikes
spd: ok
dir: ok
w: ok
tc: ok
sigma_w/u*: ok (1.3 at night)
w'w': ok
u*: ok
w'tc': ok
T: ok
RH: 4m may be low by less than 1% RH
P: okay

Upwind (hts=3.5):
----------------
(+/- = ~1 std deviation)
Missing data 17:30 - 18:50, July 7 (power outage at trailer)
Missing sonic 7u 13:00 July 7 - 10:25 July 8 (bad port on new serial card)

diag: ok
samples.sonic: ok
spd: ok, +/- 15 cm/s (6u has +15 cm/s offset in u)
dir: ok, +/- 5 deg
w: ok, +/- 5 cm/s
tc:  ok, +/- 0.2 deg
w'w': ok, +/- 0.01 m^2/s^2  (30 min avg for second moments)
u*: ok,  +/- 2 cm/s
sigma_w/u*: ok (1.3 at night)
w'tc': ok, +/- 0.02 m/s degC
tc'tc': ok, +/- 0.05 degC^2

Lower (hts=3):
-------------
Missing data 17:30 - 18:50, July 7 (power outage at trailer)
Missing sonics 7b-13b 10:15 - 10:40 July 8 (swapping serial board)

diag: ok
samples.sonic: ok
spd: ok, +/- 20 cm/s
dir: ok, +/- 6 deg
w: ok, +/- 5 cm/s
tc:  ok, +/- 0.27 deg
w'w': ok, +/- 0.01 m^2/s^2  (30 min avg for second moments)
u*: ok,  +/- 3 cm/s
sigma_w/u*: ok (1.3 at night)
w'tc': ok, +/- 0.02 m/s degC
tc'tc': ok, +/- 0.1 degC^2

Upper (hts=4):
-------------
Missing data 17:30 - 18:50, July 7 (power outage at trailer)
Missing sonics 7t-11t 10:15 - 10:40 July 8 (swapping serial board)

diag: ok
samples.sonic: ok
spd: ok, +/- 20 cm/s
dir: ok, +/- 5 deg; 6t is about 6.5 degrees off from profile sonic
w: ok, +/- 6 cm/s
tc:  ok, +/- 0.2 deg
w'w': ok, +/- 0.01 m^2/s^2  (30 min avg for second moments)
u*: ok,  +/- 4 cm/s
sigma_w/u*: ok (1.3 at night)
w'tc': ok, +/- 0.02 m/s degC
tc'tc': ok, +/- 0.1 degC ^2