I see.
Do as you wish. But NOAAPort does not exist for Gilbert, Stonie, the
IDD, or any other non-NOAA user of NOAAPort data. It exists for NOAA.
We are incidental to the service. As many European clients have told me
in the past, we are quite lucky to have NOAAPort so openly and freely,
and certainly in other political realms, such would be laughable.
The fact that "a lot of people aren't getting the 16 SNR they should be
getting" sounds an awful like misplaced entitlement to me. Regardless
of the weather or atmospheric possibilities, NCF is NOT the appropriate
contact to air your concern, as you indicated as your next plan of
action in your first email.
And that is why I copied Jami on the correspondence, as he IS the
appropriate contact to air your concern.
I don't have a problem with you complaining about a perceived problem,
as long as you are not tying up the 24/7 NOAA resources that are in
place to service NOAA facilities. NCF is not UNIDATA.
I was fine with your original email until you wrote, "So...anyone at
NOAA on this list see this going on...or should I just be done with it
and file a trouble ticket with the NCF?"
But as I said, do as you wish. But I have seen 24/7 NOAA resources
become inaccessible to external contact because of abuse on said
resources for "perceived" problems. If you have a concern, just drop a
note to Jami. Don't call NCF.
On 05/12/2012 03:05 PM, Gilbert Sebenste wrote:
> On Sat, 12 May 2012, Stonie R. Cooper wrote:
>
>> Gilbert,
>>
>> We are still over 15dB at our lab and operational downlink, with our lab
>> over 16dB most of the last hour.
>>
>> Having said that, I would caution against calling or emailing NCF
>> because your dB is not as high as it was previously. That is a single
>> measure of the ability to receive data, and not the whole picture.
>
> While it is true that it is just one measure, having one car fall off
> a train is not a trivial event, especially in satellite communication.
> I'm seeing this across the board, and a lot of people aren't getting the
> 16 SNR they should be getting, anyway.
>
>> By illustration, the retransmit rate on the NWSTG channel since the 9th
>> has been very low - never getting above 5%. In contrast, prior to the
>> 6th, the retransmit rate on NWSTG bounced as high as 22%, and certainly
>> several instances over 10%.
>
> And, as mentioned, I am getting no data loss as well. But my point was
> this: around the country, we generally have good enough weather for
> excellent reception of NOAAport, even with a marginal signal (it's *not*
> marginal, but it's now closer to it). Yes, you have storms in the
> southeastern U.S., but scattered. Again, my issue is that this lowers
> the C/N ratio so that as the weather deteriorates, we will see packet
> loss in less harsh conditions that we've seen before. Even with the last
> good CME from the sun that brought us "Northern Lights" shimmering north
> of my dish, the C/N went down to 10.5. Again, no packet loss, but now
> that it is
> down significantly, I can't be sure that the next time it happens, I
> won't lose data. And it looks like we have a good chance for more
> M-class and maybe even X-class solar flares in the next few days thanks
> to that active sunspot, so...
>
>> NCF will look at the stats of retransmit requests from the 160+ WFO and
>> RFCs and see they are low and tell you that you have a local issue if
>> you are losing data, and if you are not losing data, then, "what is the
>> problem?" will be the more likely response.
>
> The problem is when atmospheric conditions (rain and clouds) get more
> active in the weeks to come over a wider area of the country. Then the
> signal may degrade to useless levels more easily than before.
>
>> I understand that it is vexing to see dB lower than what you feel it
>> should be, but I also want to prepare you for the likely response at
>> this given time considering NOAA is not seeing any data reception issues
>> at their downlinks, based upon retransmit requests.
>
> I understand, too. But it may be a problem when the relatively tranquil
> pattern (in general) across most of the country breaks down. Having said
> that, you CC'd Jamie Casamento on this thread, and being the cool guy that
> he is, he'll check it out anyway. :-) Again, this isn't a "oh my
> goodness, everybody will lose data now" email, or I would have sent the
> message much earlier this week. But, as the weather pattern becomes more
> active, I think this could become more of an issue in the weeks to come.
> I'll wait for Jamie to chime in to see what he says.
>
> Gilbert
>
> *******************************************************************************
>
> Gilbert Sebenste
> ********
> (My opinions only!) ******
> Staff Meteorologist, Northern Illinois University ****
> E-mail: sebenste@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ***
> web: http://weather.admin.niu.edu **
> Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/NIU_Weather **
> Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/niu.weather *
> *******************************************************************************
>
>
