19990624: McIDAS Comments and Problems

>From: Bryan Rockwood <address@hidden>
>Organization: Creighton
>Keywords: 199906240351.VAA10949 McIDAS NLDN DAY ADDE NT

Bryan,

I just logged onto whistler to troubleshoot your problems.

First, the inability to display NLDN:  The problem, which I should have
seen earlier, is that the NLDN schema being used by the decoder defines
the DAY format to be CYD:

mdl.k 75

--RECORD AT (ROW,COL) = (   1,   1)

|DAY  =     99175 CYD  | TIME =      1735 HMS  | CMAX =      1000
|HMS  =         0 HMS  | LAT  =   20.9720 DEG  | LON  =   98.3560 DEG
|SGNL =    -190.0      | MULT =         1      |
mdl.k: DONE

|DAY  =     99175 CYD  | TIME =      1735 HMS  | CMAX =      1000
                   ^___ this puppy

CYD means that the DAY should be stored as CCYYDDD, not YYDDD.  So, there
is an inherent mismatch in the file.  What you really need is a newer
version of the ldm-mcidas NLDN decoder.

Since I was already on your system, and since you gave me the LDM
login, I went ahead and updated the decoder for you

cd decoders
mv nldn2md nldn2md.old
ftp ...
  <user>
  <pass>
  cd decoders
  bin
  get nldn2md
  quit
chmod +x nldn2md
  
Since there was in the file that conflicts with the schema being used
for the data, I had to delete today's NLDN MD file:

<login as mcidas>
cd workdata
mdu.k DEL 75

After waiting a few minutes (summer is great since there is a lot of 
lighting data), I verified that a new lightning file had been created:

mdu.k LIST 71 80
  MD#  CREATED SCHM PROJ  NR   NC     ID   DESCRIPTION
 ----- ------- ---- ---- ---- ---- ------- -----------
    74 1999174 NLDN    0 1000 1000   99174 NLDN data for        23 Jun 1999
    75 1999175 NLDN    0 1000 1000 1999175 NLDN data for        24 Jun 1999
 -- END OF LISTING

I then displayed your lightning data back here at Unidata from the GUI:

o erase the current frame
o left click on the name field for the BkgMap widget (not the down arrow
  button).  This action plots the currently named map in the current frame.
o opened up the GUI command mode console by left clicking on the keyboard
  button and ran:

NLDNDISP LIG OLAY 22:50

(the time was 22:54 when I ran this, and the data that had just come in
was for times around 22:50).  The plot came up fine.

You should now be able to plot lightning data from McIDAS on your systems.

Second, the NIDS ADDE server problem.

I have to say that I screwed up on this one without even knowing it.  Somehow,
I put the latest NIDS and NOWrad ADDE server source files in the 7.5
distribution.  I had not meant to do this since the web pages for configuring
the server files have not been updated.  Bummer!   Sorry!!

The good news is that you have the new code.  The bad news is that you need
to do one of two things:

o edit all of the NIDS and NOWrad configuration files and update them to
  the new syntax.  The new syntax is:

DIRMASK=
FILEMASK=
INFOFILE=

  I modified ~mcidas/workdata/BREF1.CFG to have the correct new syntax.
  You can use this file as an example of how to change all of the other
  files

o create two new configuration files in the workdata directory:

  NIDS.CFG
  NOWRAD.CFG

  For convenience, I put then in workdata for you and configured them.

  Change your DSSERVE entries for all of the NIDS products so that
  the configuration file for all NIDS types is the same file.
  I created the file ~mcidas/data/NIDSSERV.BAT for you with the
  correct syntax.

  Update the DSSERVE entries by running:

  BATCH NIDSSERV.BAT

  From a 'mcidas' McIDAS-X session.

I have to send this out now since our systems are being brought down.
Try the second option above and see if it doesn't get you rolling.  If
not let me know and I will get back on tomorrow.

Again, sorry for my screwup!

Tom