DOW 6 Radar Operations
Turn on generator – turn “Power On” knob to the right (“On”), then press green “Start” button)
Ensure all three light switches are in “On” position
Turn on/up the “System Power” and “Power” switches on the transmitter, but do not turn on
“Radiate A” or “Radiate B” toggle switches, yet!!!
Check status of GPS clock – if “Fault” light is on, wait until it clears (“Fault” indicates there is no
good signal, and situation will be resolved once a lock on a satellite signal is achieved)
Turn on the Receiver toggle switches (there are two)
Turn on the HiQ computer (open latch, press big button “Up”)
Turn on the DRX computer (small black button all the way on bottom left of unit)
Turn on MGEN computer (small black button all the way on left of unit)
Turn on NAV computer, OP computer and Wx Instruments computers
Ensure truck is level and properly navigated, recording the pertinent information (latitude,
longitude, heading, time leveled, etc.) on the Deployment Log.
Starting the inclinometer
On the “Wx Instruments” computer, look for the SEI icon on the Desktop (if the icon isn’t
visible, left click on the “Start” button on the Desktop and select “SEI” from the list of startup
programs)
A divided window will pop up on the desktop, with two dials and four numeric tables
Click on “Menu” for the Drop-down menu, and select “Show data recording panel”, then select
“Save” (data should, by default, be saved on the Desktop, but direct the files to be saved in the
“OWLeS” directory, which should also be on the Desktop – if an “OWLeS” directory doesn’t
exist, feel free to create one.). Then, click on the small box at the bottom right of each window,
then minimize the windows – data will still be recording as long as those windows are open, so
don’t shut the program down until ready to stop recording inclinometer data.
Running the mesonet
The mesonet switch is located on the same panel as the PTO switch, and is labeled “MESO”.
When this switch is turned on, the mesonet data is being recorded automatically.
To view the DOW 6 mesonet data in real time, on the “Wx Instruments” computer, double leftclick on the Loggernet icon, and select “Data” from the left hand column of the window that
pops up on the desktop.
Select the second link from the top on the right hand column of the Loggernet screen and the
Loggernet GUI will pop up on the screen
As long as the bottom right hand corner of the GUI is green (reading “Connected”) and there is
a green circle with a check mark and the word “Sync” underneath or on it, the mesonet is
operational and sending data to the datalogger
Setting up to collect radar data
Log into the DRX computer as titan using the password cswrtitan
Log into the MGEN computer as titan using the password cswrtitan
Log/click onto the HiQ computer as “Operator 2”
Upon start-up of “HiQ” computer, double left-click on the Network Sync program button on the
taskbar (little green and yellow button near the clock on the bottom right hand side of screen)
and click “Update Now” button, ensuring offset is less than 10 ms (leave the program running in
the background during operations)
On the “HiQ” computer”
Double left-click on the “Angles” icon and leave it running in the background during operations
On the DRX computer, open a terminal window (top of screen, looks like black computer
monitor icon) and type in the following:
cd /projDir/system/scripts
Press “Enter”, then type in the following:
sudo ./fix_time
(If prompted, password for titan is cswrtitan)
On the “HiQ” computer, double left-click on the “Antenna Control” icon
CHECK TO SEE THAT THE ANTENNA IS UNSTRAPPED AND CLEAR OF OBSTACLES AND PEOPLE
BEFORE PROCEEDING
In the Antenna Control display window, ensure that the proper scan strategy has been selected
With cursor over the “Stop” button in “Antenna Control” window, turn on top left knob on the
antenna control box – turn it clockwise while simultaneously pressing the “Stop” button on the
“Antenna Control” window once (if the “Stop” button is accidentally pressed more than once,
wait until the “Stop” button stops blinking before proceeding to next step)
With cursor over the “Stop” button in the “Antenna Control” window, turn on the top right
knob on the antenna control box – turn it clockwise while simultaneously pressing the “Stop”
button on the “Antenna Control” window once (if the “Stop” button is accidentally pressed
more than once, wait until the “Stop” button stops blinking before proceeding to next step)
With cursor over the “Stop” button in the “Antenna Control” window, turn on the bottom left
toggle switch on the antenna control box – pull it slightly out and up while simultaneously
pressing the “Stop” button on the “Antenna Control” window once (if the “Stop” button is
accidentally pressed more than once, wait until the “Stop” button stops blinking before
proceeding to next step)
With cursor over the “Stop” button in the “Antenna Control” window, turn on the bottom right
toggle switch on the antenna control box – pull it slightly out and up while simultaneously
pressing the “Stop” button on the “Antenna Control” window once (if the “Stop” button is
accidentally pressed more than once, wait until the “Stop” button stops blinking before
proceeding to next step)
CHECK TO ENSURE THE ANTENNA IS UNSTRAPPED AND CLEAR OF OBSTRUCTIONS AND
PEOPLE BEFORE PROCEEDING
Click on the “Run Scan” button
Click on the “Enable Servo Amps” button
Click “Ok”, then press the big “Stop” button on the “Antenna Control” window.
Click on the “Run Scan” button again
Ensure the antenna is spinning correctly, then proceed to next steps
On the MGEN computer, open a terminal window (again, top of screen, looks like black
computer monitor icon) and type in the following:
sudo /etc/init.d/network restart
(If prompted, the password for the MGEN machine is cswrtitan)
On the DRX computer, double left-click on the “start_all” icon on the desktop
On the MGEN computer, double left-click on the “start_all” icon on the desktop (if you wish to
collect time series files, double left-click on the “start TS Recording High” and “start TS
Recording Low” icons.)
The TSRecording icons will open up two windows, one with yellow text and one with orange
text, which will go away after three hours’ of data collection time. The TsRecording programs
will need to be restarted if additional TS files are wanted (the PI will specify.)
Once the RadMon windows pop up on both screens, proceed to the next steps
On the DRX computer, left-click on the “GUI” button at the top of the screen. Be sure to click
this button only once, to prevent multiple instances of the GUI from opening.
On the MGEN computer, left-click on the “HawkeyeHigh” and “HawkeyeLow” buttons on the
top of the screen. Again, be sure to click each of these buttons only once.
On the DRX computer screen, with the GUI window open, ensure that the proper config file has
been selected (this will be determined by the PIs on the day of operations if it’s anything other
than the default config file.)
Truck must be running in order for transmitter to operate – if truck is not on, do not proceed
to turn on the transmitter toggle switches. Additionally, make sure that both pulses come up
on the oscilloscope – if two pulses are not visible on the oscilloscope, do not proceed to turn
on the transmitter toggle switches.
Once the correct configuration file has been selected, the truck pressure is deemed appropriate
(~23-30 psi) and the pulses are visible on the oscilloscope, turn on the “Radiate A” toggle switch
(pull it out slightly and push it up)
Wait five seconds, and then turn on the “Radiate B” toggle switch (pull it out slightly and push it
up). Be sure to record the time that transmission started in the deployment field log.
Using the Hawkeye screens, zoom in and out, and perform monitoring tasks as desired.
Be sure to fill out (every 15 minutes that the radar is operating) the appropriate Deployment
Log as indicated, recording information about the time, radar frequencies, disk space (of both
MGEN and the external disk) and Network Time offset.
Files for the day’s mission will be written to the following location on the MGEN machine:
Sweep files:
projDir/data/DOW6/dorade/moments/combined/YYYYMMDD
projDir/data/DOW6/dorade/moments/high/YYYYMMDD
projDir/data/DOW6/dorade/moments/low/YYYYMMDD
Time series:
projDir/data/DOW6/time_series/save/high/YYYYMMDD
projDir/data/DOW6/time_series/save/low/YYYYMMDD
Files for the day’s mission will also be simultaneously written to the following location on the
external disk:
Sweep files:
DOW6_00#/data/OWLeS/dorade/moments/combined/YYYYMMDD
DOW6_00#/data/OWLeS/dorade/moments/high/YYYYMMDD
DOW6_00#/data/OWLeS/dorade/moments/low/YYYYMMDD
Time_series:
DOW6_00#/data/OWLeS/time_series/save/high/YYYYMMDD
DOW6_00#/data/OWLeS/time_series/save/low/YYYYMMDD
Additional files will automatically be saved to the external disk, but they do not need to be
checked by students. The dorade and time series files, however, should be checked periodically
throughout the mission to ensure proper data collection is occurring.
If the external disk needs to be changed out at any point during operations, please be sure to
log the date and time (on the disk label) of the last piece of data contained on the disk.
Please be sure to keep/place all disks in the small plastic disk container in the DOW. Disks
should only be swapped when the necessity arises, however.
To end data collection:
Turn off the transmitter toggle switches one at a time
Turn off receiver toggle switches one at a time
If the operations are over for the day, the “Power” toggle switch on the transmitter can be
turned off as well, but do not turn off the system power for the transmitter until at least 10-15
minutes have elapsed, and the air blowing out of the transmitter is cool.
On the DRX computer, click on the “stop_all” icon
On the MGEN computer, click on the “stop_all” icon
Press “Stop” on the Antenna Control window
Stow the antenna by pressing “Stow” button (when prompted, click “Yes”)
After antenna has been properly stowed, turn off the antenna control box in the following
order:
Turn off bottom right toggle switch
Turn off bottom left toggle switch
Turn of top right power knob
Turn off top left power knob
Collect the day’s ancillary data (NAV, mesonet, etc.) onto the thumb drive
Turn off NAV, Wx Instruments and other small computers
Turn off the HiQ computer
Turn off the DRX computer
Upon ensuring that all of the day’s data from the MGEN machine has made it onto the external
hard drive, MGEN can be turned off, as well – this may take a long time, depending on amount
of data collected
Turn the “System Power” switch off on the transmitter once 10-15 minutes have elapsed since
the transmitter power switch was turned off.
Upon successful shut-down of all DOW computers, press small, red “Stop” button on generator,
and wait 120 seconds for generator to stop
When generator stops/shuts down, turn “Power” knob on the generator to the left (“Off”
position)
At the garage, give external drive(s) and thumb drive to data manager.