DQRID : D030312.8
Start DateStart TimeEnd DateEnd Time Data Quality Metric
02/27/2002015110/02/20022359Suspect
more
Subject:
TWP/MWR/C3 - Intermittent Negative Sky Brightness Temperatures
DataStreams:twpmwrlosC3.a1, twpmwrlosC3.b1
Description:
Several related and recurring problems with the MWRs have been reported
dating back to 1999.  These problems were due to the occurrence of
blackbody signals (in counts) that were half of those expected. The
symptoms included noisy data, spikes in the data, negative brightness
temperatures, and apparent loss of serial communication between the
computer and the radiometer, which results in a self-termination of the
MWR program.

Because these all initially appeared to be hardware-related problems,
the instrument mentor and SGP site operations personnel (1) repeatedly
cleaned and replaced the fiber optic comm. components, (2) swapped
radiometers, (3) sent radiometers back to Radiometrics for evaluation
(which did not revealed any instrument problems), and (4) reconfigured
the computer's operating system.  Despite several attempts to isolate
and correct it, the problem persisted.

It became apparent that some component of the Windows98 configuration
conflicted with the DOS-based MWR program or affected the serial port
or the contents of the serial port buffer. This problem was finally
corrected by upgrading the MWR software with a new Windows-compatible
program (MWR version 4.12).
Suggestions: 
Visually inspect data to identify specific times to filter bad data.
Measurements:twpmwrlosC3.b1:
  • vap
  • tbsky23
  • bb23
  • bb31
  • bbn31
  • bbn23
  • liq
  • tbsky31
more
twpmwrlosC3.a1:
  • tbsky31
  • bb31
  • vap
  • bb23
  • bbn31
  • bbn23
  • tbsky23
  • liq
more

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