1999716: Gempak Questions

>From: Mark Tucker <address@hidden>
>Organization: .
>Keywords: 199907161942.NAA06170

>
>Hi, I'm in the process of updating our lab.  All our machines are running
>Linux 2.0.36 (Debian 2.1).   I've got gempak installed on
>an NFS mounted drive as well as our data.  I've run into a couple of
>problems:
>
>1. Missing NIDS.  NIDS does not appear as an option in the Image Products
>dialog.  It does list GOES-10, GOES-8 etc. as expected but NIDS is missing
>as an option.  I have verified that the data is in the correct location.  
>The Gemenvironment appears to be setup correctly and is getting "sourced"
>correctly by the user.  I also examined Garp_defaults and that seems to be
>correct as well.  I don't know what else to check that might be causing 
>this problem.

Mark,

If you your nids data under $SAT/NIDS, then make sure your Garp_defaults
has the line:
nids            : $(SAT)/NIDS

Check for differences in "NIDS" vs "nids" as directory names. Note that you
have to restart Garp after changing the defaults file.






>
>2. Model data.  This problem is similar to the NIDS issue above.   
>Currently we can only see AVN and ECMWF.  No changes to our data
>ingestion have been made.

When you say you are updating your lab, are you loading a new version of 
the Gempak distribution? I have changed some of the model keys in
the pl11 distribution since NOAAport has several ETA grids, AVN, MRF etc.

Peviously the model key would be "eta", now it is "eta_grid211" with
similar changes in the pqact.conf entry for dcgrib naming the
files with YYYYMMDDHH_eta_grid@@@.gem.

If this isn't it, then it would help to see the output of:
ls $HDS 
and your Garp_defaults.



>
>3. ACARS data.  We would like to add ACARS data for use under Gempak.  I
>saw the announcement on this a while back but have not been able to find 
>the necessary changes to our pqact.conf on your web site.  Also, it
>appears that I will need some additional decoders for this, correct?  What
>do I need and how should it be configured?

dcacars, acprof and nsharp are in the pl11 linux tar file (I will
be reposting this file next week as pl12 with a Garp 2.02 update).

The acars LDM data comes directly from FSL, so you have to contact them 
directly 
to get them to feed the "PCWS" feed type to you. 

To decode into half hourly files, the pattern will look like:
PCWS    ^FSL\.NetCDF\.ACARS\.QC
        PIPE    -close  dcacars -l data/gempak/logs/dcacars.log -b 30
        -e GEMTBL=/home/gempak/NAWIPS-5.4/gempak5.4/tables
        data/gempak/acars/YYYYMMDDHHNN_acars.gem

Here is the ACARS announcement regarding contacting FSL:

From: Linda Miller <address@hidden>
To: address@hidden
cc: address@hidden
Date: Mon, 14 Jun 1999 14:23:57 -0600
Subject: 19990614: ACARS Data Available
Message-ID: <address@hidden>
Originator-Info: login-id=lmiller; server=mail.unidata.ucar.edu
X-Mailer: Mulberry (MacOS) [1.4.2, s/n U-301186]
Sender: address@hidden

All,

ACARS (Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System) data
are now available for research and educational uses to the Unidata
university community from NOAA's Forecast Systems Laboratory (FSL)
using point-to-point LDM technology.

These data can be useful in a multitude of applications including
modeling, aviation and weather research, and training purposes.  In
return for the data, participating airlines are hoping to gain
additional information on the use of the data through scientific papers
presented at symposia such as the AMS and AGU annual meetings, etc.

For detailed information on the data sets, how to obtain the data, and
the restrictions on their use, please refer to the FSL ACARS web page:

http://acweb.fsl.noaa.gov/FAQ.html

Please contact Unidata support (address@hidden) for
information on decoders for use of ACARS with Unidata-supplied
application packages.


Linda Miller
External Liaison, Unidata
University Corporation for Atmospheric Research
P.O. Box 3000
Boulder, CO 80307-3000
303 497-8646 fax: 303-497-8690
URL:  http:/www.unidata.ucar.edu/staff/lmiller/un.act.html

>
>
>4. Pseudo-colors.  I understand that Gempak requires 8-bit color.  Right
>now I have our lab machines running in pure 8-bit color depth under
>XFree86 on Linux. I would like to define an 8-bit pseudocolor visual as
>the default for Gempak and run the display at 24-bit or higher.
>Unfortunately, I cannot find any information on setting this up under   
>Linux or XFree86 in general.  The color map "swapping" between other apps
>and Gempak is very annoying.  Occasionally, some other program will
>allocate too many colors which then causes problems for any gempak apps   
>when they try to load.  I know that this is a common problem.  Have any
>other sites running Linux gotten gempak to work with a display depth
>greater than 8bit?  If so, what changes do I need to make?


If you run "xdpyinfo" you should see that although the "default" viual
is pseudocolor, there should be other visuals that are tru color.

Smarter programs know how to utilize the true color visuals without
relying on them to be the default. Gempak only knows how to contact the
default display. Other programs like netscape have a way to specify using a
private color map, eg "netscape -install". 

>
>Thanks.
>
>Mark Tucker
>Information Technology
>Lyndon State College
>address@hidden
>
>

Steve Chiswell

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