20010207: ldm mcidas-xcd data decoding prob. at SUNY NCC

>From: Steve Ochani <address@hidden>
>Organization: SUNY NCC
>Keywords: 200102080457.f184v9L18569 McIDAS-XCD LDM ldmd.conf request

Steve,

>I admin the ldm and mcidas server at SUNY NCC

Long time no hear...

>Recently the need arose to use mcidas so I downloaded and 
>installed the new ldm decoders (ldm-mcidas-7.6.4.tar.Z) in bin 
>format. 
>Our ldm version is 5.0.8

OK.

>The problem is only AREA files are being decoded so only thing I 
>can display in McIDAS is sat. images. I did add the following 
>entries to the bottom of the pqact.conf file
>
>DDPLUS|IDS      ^.*     PIPE
>        xcd_run DDS
>HRS     ^.*     PIPE
>        xcd_run HRS
>
>(yes the big spaces are tabs)
>the request line in the ldmd.conf file is

This look good.  XCD decoding will work if:

o things are setup in the 'mcidas' account
o if you get the data to feed to the decoders
o if your ldmd.conf file has an exec line for xcd_run:

exec    "xcd_run MONITOR"

o if you have copied xcd_run to a directory in the PATH of the user
  running the LDM; I suggest using ~ldm/decoders.

o and finally, if you have edited xcd_run to set needed McIDAS
  environment variables

>request MCIDAS ".*" owl.uwyo.edu

This is most likely your problem.  Since you are only requesting
products in the MCIDAS stream, you will only decode imagery.
Non-imagery products were removed from the Unidata-Wisconsin
datastream (LDM feed type MCIDAS) at the end of June 1999.

What you want to replace this ldmd.conf request line with is:

request MCIDAS|DDPLUS|IDS ".*" owl.uwyo.edu

This will get you everything except the model output data (HRS),
FSP wind profiler data (FSL2), lightning data (NLDN), and NEXRAD
Level III radar data (NNEXRAD for the full stream; FNEXRAD for
the floaters).

All of the above feeds except NLDN can be gotten from the normal
IDD fanout, so you should be able to get them from owl.uwyo.edu.
If you want to get the NLDN lightning data, you have to contact
SUNY Albany for a point-to-point feed.

I must warn you that the amount of data in the HRS and NNEXRAD
data feeds is _huge_, so if you have limited network bandwidth
it would be wise to not try to request them.  See the end of
this note for more details.

>Our main feedsite cyclone.geos.nlu.edu has been giving me a lot of 
>probs
>
>I checked with notifyme to see if the data is on the owl server
>
>[ldm@wr ~/etc]$ notifyme -vl - -h owl.uwyo.edu -f "HRS"
>Feb 08 04:34:57 notifyme[28362]: Starting Up: owl.uwyo.edu: 
>20010208043457.984 TS_ENDT {{HDS,  ".*"}}
>Feb 08 04:34:58 notifyme[28362]: NOTIFYME(owl.uwyo.edu): OK
>Feb 08 04:34:58 notifyme[28362]:     6308 20010208043457.997     
>HDS 050  YVQA65 KWBC 080400 /mRUC
>
>[ldm@wr ~/etc]$ notifyme -vl - -h owl.uwyo.edu -f "MCIDAS"
>Feb 08 04:36:04 notifyme[28368]: Starting Up: owl.uwyo.edu: 
>20010208043604.077 TS_ENDT {{MCIDAS,  ".*"}}
>Feb 08 04:36:04 notifyme[28368]: NOTIFYME(owl.uwyo.edu): OK
>Feb 08 04:36:04 notifyme[28368]:    68962 20010208043605.493  
>MCIDAS 000  pnga2area Q1 UY 110 GOES-8_IMG 6.8um 1km 
>20010208 0300

This looks correct given that your request line only asks
for MCIDAS data.

>Also I have the route.sys, schema and syskey.tab from the new 
>decoders in the data dir. (i also tried keeping the old ones) I'm not 
>sure if that will make a diff. though

Since the image decoding is working, your setup with respect to
having ROUTE.SYS and SYSKEY.TAB in the output directory with correct
read/write permissions must be correct.

>I have checked the ldmd.log file and dont see any refrences to 
>xcd_run at all, can I run this manually? (I searched through the ldm 
>support list but couldnt find a clean instruction on how to)

Did you remember to add the 'exec       "xcd_run MONITOR"' line
in ldmd.conf?

>Any help would be apreciated.
>
>Our mcidas version is still 7.6 but I plan to update to 7.7 very soon

OK, but this is not the problem.

On a related topic, since your need for data seems to be somewhat
sporadic, you may be able to run your McIDAS sessions pointing to
remote ADDE servers and eliminate the need to ingest/decod/manage data
on your local machine.  This is easily done, and it opens up the full
set of NEXRAD data to you as well as high resolution satellite imagery
that is broadcast in NOAAPORT.  To get a feeling for what ADDE can
provide for you, please try out the following command invocations from
a McIDAS-X session:

DATALOC ADD GINIEAST snow.plymouth.edu
DATALOC ADD GINIWEST papagayo.unl.edu
DATALOC ADD GINICOMP papagayo.unl.edu
DATALOC ADD RTGINI   adde.ucar.edu
DATALOC ADD RTNEXRAD adde.ucar.edu
DATALOC ADD RTPTSRC  papagayo.unl.edu
DATALOC ADD RTWXTEXT papagayo.unl.edu

DSINFO I GINIEAST
DSINFO I GINIWEST
DSINFO I RTNEXRAD
DSINFO P RTPTSRC

SF 1
IMGDISP GINIEAST/GE1KVIS STA=KJFK EU=IMAGE REFRESH='EG;MAP H'

SF 2
IMGDISP GINIEAST/GE1KVIS STA=KJFK EU=IMAGE MAG=-3 REFRESH='EG;MAP H'
SFCCON PRE OLAY FRAME
SFCPLOT T OLAY FRAME

SF 3
IMGLIST RTNEXRAD/N0R ID=LIST
IMGDISP RTNEXRAD/N0R ID=OKX STA=OKX EU=BREF REFRESH='EG;MAP H;BAR'
SFCPLOT T OLAY FRAME

SF 4
SFCPLOT T NA
FRNTDISP OLAY FRAME

This should give you a little flavor of what is out there and easily
accessible to your McIDAS sessions without having to ingest and decode
data locally.

If you are interested in pursuing the ADDE remote access to data, I can
help you get your site setup with the necessary DATALOCs.  Also, folks
there would rather use a push button interface to display of products,
then I can work with you in getting McIDAS-X 7.7 up and running and
configured to access all datasets remotely.  Please let me know.

>Thanks

Tom Yoksas

>From address@hidden Thu Feb  8 05:34:33 2001
>Subject: RE: 20010207: ldm mcidas-xcd data decoding prob. at SUNY NCC

Tom,

Thanks for your quick reply!

Lisa