20010227: MCIDAS-X question

>From: Alan Czarnetzki <address@hidden>
>Organization: University of Northern Iowa
>Keywords: 200102272159.f1RLxeL00467 McIDAS-X ADDE

Alan,

>We have MCIDAS installed and are ready to begin looking at
>real time data.  Using DATALOC, I'm accessing image data from 
>ADDE.UCAR.EDU.  Would you be able to point me to a host or hosts that
>would allow me to access point, grid, and text data?

Sure.  adde.ucar.edu can also be used for RTPTSRC, RTGRIDS, RTWXTEXT,
RTNEXRAD, RTGINI, GINIEAST, GINIWEST, and GINICOMP data, but there are
other machines that can do the same thing.o

Here is a list of sites that have agreed to provide remote ADDE access
to realtime data:

Site                 machine              ADDE datasets hosted
--------------------+--------------------+-----------------------------------
Unidata/NCAR-SCD     adde.ucar.edu        ADDEINFO, CIMSS, GINICOMP, GINIEAST,
                                          GINIWEST, RTGINI, RTGRIDS, RTIMAGES,
                                          RTNEXRAD, RTPTSRC, RTWXTEXT

U Nebraska-Lincoln   papagayo.unl.edu     ADDEINFO, CIMSS, GINICOMP, GINIEAST,
                                          GINIWEST, RTGINI, RTGRIDS, RTIMAGES,
                                          RTNEXRAD, RTPTSRC, RTWXTEXT

CU/CIRES (NOAA)      stratus.al.noaa.gov  ADDEINFO, CIMSS, GINICOMP, GINIEAST,
                                          GINIWEST, RTGINI, RTGRIDS, RTIMAGES,
                                          RTNEXRAD, RTPTSRC, RTWXTEXT

U of Georgia         cacimbo.ggy.uga.edu  ADDEINFO, CIMSS, GINICOMP, GINIEAST,
                                          RTIMAGES, RTNEXRAD, RTPTSRC, RTWXTEXT

Plymouth State Col.  snow.plymouth.edu    ADDEINFO, CIMSS, GINICOMP, GINIEAST,
                                          GINIWEST, RTGINI, RTIMAGES, RTNEXRAD

U Wisconsin/SSEC     <future machine>     ADDEINFO, CIMSS, GINICOMP, GINIEAST,
                                          GINIWEST, RTGINI, RTGRIDS, RTIMAGES,
                                          RTNEXRAD, RTPTSRC, RTWXTEXT

The machines at Unidata and UNL are both well configured Sun Enterprise
450 boxes.  Even though they have the same datasets, the Unidata
machine has a lot more storage, so it keeps more online at any time.
This may or may not be important for you.   It won't be important if
you use of McIDAS (and the Unidata Metapps Java applications) is for
the most current data.

The machine at CU/CIRES is slower than either the Unidata or UNL machines,
but it also has a full complement of data.

The University of Georgia uses both the Unidata IDD and a single
channel NOAAPORT receiver to get its data.   The single port receiver
is the reason it only has the GINIEAST and GINICOMP datasets of GINI
imagery.

Plymouth State has a 4 channel NOAAPORT system, but they have not set
it up to feed an LDM and, thereby, to be able to run McIDAS XCD
decoders.  We have been talking about how to approach this, but we have
not yet come up with a definite plan.

I think that your best bet would be to "point" (DATALOC) at the UNL
machine right now as it gets a lot less use than the Unidata/NCAR-SCD
machine.

Another comment.  You will notice in the list of datasets that each
machine hosts a dataset named ADDEINFO.  The idea behind this dataset
is for you to be able to quickly download a file and run it as a McIDAS
BATCH file and setup your machine(s) for ADDE services.

The idea goes something like this:

<start a McIDAS-X session as the user 'mcidas'>
DATALOC ADD ADDEINFO PAPAGAYO.UNL.EDU        <- point at papagayo for ADDEINFO
DSINFO TEXT ADDEINFO                         <- see what TEXT elements are there
READ ADDEINFO/DATASETS                       <- read DATASETS 
READ ADDEINFO/DATASETS DEV=T DATASETS.BAT R  <- read DATASETS and save its
                                                contents in a McIDAS BATCH file
BATCH DATASETS.BAT                           <- run all of the DATALOC commands
                                                that will get you data from
                                                papagayo

If you setup your 'mcidas' account correctly, you will have defined
MCTABLE_WRITE to be:

MCTABLE_WRITE="/home/mcidas/data/ADDESITE.TXT"

If your non-'mcidas' user accounts are setup correctly, then their
MCTABLE_READs and MCTABLE_WRITEs will be defined as:

MCTABLE_READ="/home/user/mcidas/data/MCTABLE.TXT;/home/mcidas/data/ADDESITE.TXT"
MCTABLE_WRITE="/home/user/mcidas/data/MCTABLE.TXT"

Here, '/home/user' is whatever each user's HOME directory really is.

If those users have not setup their own DATALOCs, then they will use
the DATALOCs that you just setup in the 'mcidas' account.  If they have
defined their own set of DATALOCs, then those will be used in
preference to the DATALOCs defined in ADDESITE.TXT.  In order to use
the ADDESITE.TXT definitions, they would have to delete their own.  For
instance, if a user had previously defined a DATALOC for RTPTSRC, then
s/he would delete it to use the one you setup in ADDESITE.TXT:

DATALOC DEL RTPTSRC

After setting up the DATALOCs as 'mcidas', your Fkey menu should be
mostly usable.  Just to let you know, I have recently upgraded the Fkey
menu to be able to access the GINI data via ADDE.  I have also upgraded
it to be able to once again look at gridded data like what was once in
the Unidata-Wisconsin datastream.  The two sites that are producing the
needed dataset members, RTGRIDS/NGM-UW and RTGRIDS/MRF-UW are
adde.ucar.edu and papagayo.unl.edu, so you might want to point at
either of these machines for RTGRIDS.

I will be releasing the new version of the Fkey menu in an upcoming
addendum, so you should keep an eye out for the notice of its
availablity on the mcidas-x email list (I just made sure that you are
on the list).

>Thanks for your help.

You are welcome.  Please let me know if you run into any problems or
have questions.

Tom