20000516: shef

>From: "Arthur A. Person" <address@hidden>
>Organization: Penn State
>Keywords: 200005102212.e4AMCj427366 dcshef problems

Hi Art-

Chiz is out of town until next week, but I'll answer what I can.
We are not using the shef decoder here, so my knowledge is limited.

>I'm finally getting around to using shef data from the dcshef decoder...
>Have noticed a couple things that I have questions about:
>
>   1)  The shef data are being filed in 1/4-hour files;  I would prefer
>       them to be filed hourly.  Is there any way to change this (or do I
>       have something messed up already)?

Can you send me your pqact.conf entry?  I would think that the -m
flag would set the number of times in the file and the template
you use would determine the filename.

>   2)  dcshef creates files with dates for months in advance and months
>       behind the current date, presumably in response to dates sent in
>       the shef data...  can a limit be added to the decoder to eliminate
>       the bogus files?  It's annoying when viewing the lists in garp.

I don't think there is anything you can do about dates in the future,
but you should be able to limit the past dates with the -b flag which
specifies Number of hours to decode prior to "current" time.

>   3)  There appears to be a bug in gempak (garp) that doesn't allow
>       values to be modified in the "station model" format, we think,
>       because the variable names are not 4 characters.  E.g.  we display
>       shef precip data, which is PPP, and want to display hundredths of
>       inches, so we do PPP*100.  However, gempak comes back and says the
>       value is not calculable.  If this isn't easy to fix, is there a way
>       around it?

I would think it more that there is not support in the parameter selector
for modifiers to parameter names rather than a 4 character limit.

Don Murray