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Mike, The ship format file does not have a "number of times" versus "number of stations" format like fixed stations. Rather, each time, station, location point is a unique entry. The current maximum number of headers is 30,000. (generally 300 times and 29,700 location in a standard file). You can have at max, 30000 observations in a ship format file. The default is 3399 set at NCEP, but you should be able to make this -m 29999. If you are currently seeing 4+ hours in the 3400 limit, then you might be able to fit this into a single daily file. But, the tradeoff is much slower data access. And the NMAP configurations are currently set for houly data. Steve Chiswell Unidata User Support >From: Mike Trexler <address@hidden> >Organization: UCAR/Unidata >Keywords: 200109251535.f8PFZQ115467 >Hi Steve (presumably) > >I am having trouble decoding ship and buoy data into daily, >rather than hourly files. The files seem to only accept data >through 5Z and then can't hold anymore. I don't know if it's >a number of times issue or a number of stations issue. I >tried several combination of flags after the decoder, which >didn't seem to work. How is it that I should setup that line >in my pqact file. > >thanks >Mike > >-- >__________________________________________________ >************************************************** >****** C. Michael Trexler ****** >****** N C State Univ. - Box 8208 ****** >****** Dept. of Mar/Earth/Atmos. Sciences ****** >****** Research III Rm. 100 ****** >****** Raleigh, NC 27695-8208 ****** >****** (919) 515-1447 Phone ****** >****** (919) 515-1683 Fax ****** >************************************************** >-------------------------------------------------- >****** address@hidden ****** >__________________________________________________ > > >