DQRID : D030312.9
Start DateStart TimeEnd DateEnd Time Data Quality Metric
01/04/2002220010/31/20022220Suspect
more
Subject:
TWP/MWR/C1 - Intermittent Negative Sky Brightness Temperatures
DataStreams:twpmwrlosC1.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.
Suggestions: 
Visually inspect data to identify specific times to filter bad data
Measurements:twpmwrlosC1.b1:
  • tbsky31
  • vap
  • liq
  • tbsky23
more

Close this window