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>From: "J. Correia" <address@hidden> >Organization: UCAR/Unidata >Keywords: 200106251520.f5PFKU128060 >i am trying to merge a ship, buoy and metar files...but it appears thru >the email archive that u cant actually use sfmod with a ship file... >is there a better way to do this with gempak 5.6? or is the sfedit method >the best available? >thanks, >james correia jr >fsu > > James, When merging data that is in different types of files, and different parameter lists, you will have to plan ahead for specifying the SFPRMF. That is, the reporting parameters in the METAR file will be different than those in the ship/buoy file. The best thing to do is create a new file with the list of parameters you want in the merged file (40 parameters is the maximum). Here is the easiest way to merge SHIP and METAR using SFMOD and a standard GEMPAK surface file: 1) Create a new empty file with sfcfil. Here I'm just going to use TMPC since it is a parameter in both types of input data. I'll create a standard surface file with room for 24 times and 15,000 stations. Chances are, if your metar file was created with dcmetr, and you didn't specify a large number of additional stations, you won't have room in the existing file. SFOUTF = testme.gem SFPRMF = tmpc STNFIL = SHIPFL = n TIMSTN = 24/15000 SFFSRC = GEMPAK-SFCFIL>r SFCFIL PARAMETERS: New surface file: testme.gem Parameter file: tmpc Station file: Number of stations in STNFIL: 0 Number of additional stations: 15000 Total number of stations: 15000 Total number of times: 24 This file will be a standard surface file. Enter <cr> to accept parameters or type EXIT: Parameters requested: SFOUTF,SFPRMF,STNFIL,SHIPFL,TIMSTN,SFFSRC. GEMPAK-SFCFIL>e 2) Use SFMOD to copy the ship data to the new file. Here, I'll just copy the 12Z data as an example. SFFILE = ship SFOUTF = testme.gem DATTIM = 1200 DATOUT = 1200 AREA = dset SFPARM = dset GEMPAK-SFMOD>sfparm = tmpc GEMPAK-SFMOD>r SFMOD PARAMETERS: Input file: ./2001062512_sb.gem Output file: testme.gem Area: dset Output parameters: tmpc Input date/time: Output date/time: 010625/1200 010625/1200 Enter <cr> to accept parameters or type EXIT: Parameters requested: SFFILE,SFOUTF,DATTIM,DATOUT,AREA,SFPARM. GEMPAK-SFMOD>e 3) Now copy the metar data. SFFILE = metar SFOUTF = testme.gem DATTIM = 1200 DATOUT = 1200 AREA = dset SFPARM = tmpc GEMPAK-SFMOD>r SFMOD PARAMETERS: Input file: $GEMDATA/surface/20010625_sao.gem Output file: testme.gem Area: dset Output parameters: tmpc Input date/time: Output date/time: 010625/1200 010625/1200 Enter <cr> to accept parameters or type EXIT: Steve Chiswell