20030430: McIDAS running off of NOAAPORT

>From: Dan Vietor <address@hidden>
>Organization: Unisys
>Keywords: 200304302005.h3UK5W7U012226 McIDAS-XCD UNISYS NOAAPORT

Hi Dan,

>We've had a question raised here about using McIDAS getting its data
>from a NOAAPORT system.  

OK.

>My question is whether this is being done in the university community. 

Yes, it is being done at more than one Unidata site.

>I know that the McIDAS data stream (pre-digested) has been going to the
>universities through the LDM for years.  But I remember discussion about
>using the McIDAS decoders off a raw data stream such as NOAAPORT.

I wrote an ADDE server that works on the GINI images available in
NOAAPORT channels 1 & 2, and the McIDAS-XCD package of decoders is used
to turn the textual and GRIB stuff in channel 3 to McIDAS-compatible
files (MDXX and GRID).  The SSEC distribution of McIDAS does not have
the GINI ADDE server; folks would have to use ours.

>Since we offer an LDM backend to NOAAPORT, it would seem likely that
>this feed could be sent to McIDAS decoders if the end user has the full
>McIDAS system.

Yup, it should be straightforward/easy.

>I'm just curious if there are any potential problems
>using raw NOAAPORT data fed through an LDM to McIDAS???

McIDAS-XCD was originally created to ingest data directly from the
serial output of NOAAPORT ingesters, and it can and does still do this
in the non-Unidata contexts.  Since Wisconsin sells their own box, I
can't tell you whether or not the CCBs on products would cause a
problem or not.  I can tell you that some folks are using Planetary
Data's NOAAPORT ingest systems to feed products to an LDM which is
configured to run McIDAS ingest and decode software, and that the work
to do this was minimal.

Does the UNISYS NOAAPORT system have the capability to strip off or
leave on the CCBs?

Can you describe the LDM backend of the UNISYS NOAAPORT ingester
(high level overview) or point me to a web page that has this
info?

Jim Koermer was at one time going to work with his UNISYS 4-channel
NOAAPORT system to get data into the LDM, but he has not had the time
(I think) to do this.  All that is really needed for the McIDAS-XCD
decoders to function correctly is to be able to distinguish between
text and binary data so that the textual data can be fed into the
McIDAS text ingester and binary data can be fed into the McIDAS binary
ingester.  After that, McIDAS-XCD routines do all of the conversion
that is necessary.

Tom

>From address@hidden Wed Apr 30 15:16:25 2003
>From: Dan Vietor <address@hidden>
>To: Unidata Support <address@hidden>

re: it is being done at more than one Unidata site.

>I thought so but I wanted to confirm it before I said something I'd
>regret.

re: Unidata McIDAS has an ADDE GINI server

>Will have to keep that in mind.

re: setup should be straightforward/easy.

>Cool!

> Does the UNISYS NOAAPORT system have the capability to strip off or
> leave on the CCBs?

We send out the data with the standard CCB:

[SOH]
seq[CR][CR][LF]
wmo[CR][CR][LF]
data
[ETX]

I know we have NOAAPORT systems out there that use the LDM to ingest
data into other systems so I suspect it will work with McIDAS.  I hope! 
Of course, I could always change the NOAAPORT system.

> Can you describe the LDM backend of the UNISYS NOAAPORT ingester
> (high level overview) or point me to a web page that has this
> info?

The NOAAPORT ingestor outputs to a port (TCP server socket) and we use
stock pqing to ingest the data.

pqing -p 5001 noaaport

and this works fine. We have 4 NOAAPORT customers using this solution
now.  I haven't tried this with satellite data yet.

Their current NOAAPORT system is very old (1 computer per channel) and
they're upgrading to a new Linux based system (1 computer 4 channels)
here shortly.  I'm sure they will be getting in touch with us on the LDM
setup.

-- 
________________________________________________________
Daniel Vietor               Mail: address@hidden
Unisys Corp                 Title: Engineer/Meteorologist
221 Gale Lane               Phone: 610-925-5206
Kennett Square PA 19348     Fax: 610-925-5215