Efficiency

[cutty]

The best way to tune a station is to optimize it in this way that every detected signal is a stroke !

But not every stroke is registered by a single station. Try to optimize "quotas" Locating ratio and Stroke ratio at lightningmaps.org. A good starting is, if both values has nearly the same value, whether they are low or high.

Your station doesn't have the claim receiving all strokes (in your area) !

Thomas

Thanks Thomas,

I am aware of the fact that there are more ways of optimizing my stations. But this does not answer the questions that I posted here. 

Gerhard

Gerhard, perhaps one way, long term, to optimize, is follow the stats on LMO, Advanced, etc... someday I'll figure it all out myself... but I like to look at 'deviation'... it might seem to me that I'm providing optimized data the better the deviations, at least for the 'good signals' I send...

[Gerhard.Wittevee]

Gerhard, perhaps one way, long term, to optimize, is follow the stats on LMO, Advanced, etc... someday I'll figure it all out myself... but I like to look at 'deviation'... it might seem to me that I'm providing optimized data the better the deviations, at least for the 'good signals' I send...

Thanks Mike,

I am checking the LMO graphs too. But my lack of maths-skills is annoying  
The main reason for using the participants-table for optimizing the station is the relatively quick reaction you see to a change in settings. In an hour the "new" results are visible, and can be compared to other stations. So a increase or decrease in lightning activity is also visible, the surrounding station wil increase or decrease by roughly the same amount. But with the current calculation those values are harder to compare. Up to a point where stations with higher signals and lower strikes are rated higher. That can not be right in my humble opinion. 
Again, with my limited maths-skills i am certainly not able to design a better calculation. I totally understand why it is a good thing to use the signals in te calculation, but the old calculation gave me more grip on checking and optimizing my settings. But I sure am glad this topic is now the talk of the town  
I hope a great idea pops up!

Gerhard

[Knickohr]

OK guys,

update the graphs. Sorry for confusing

Thomas

[micha.d]

ok, I'm relatively new and I read this thread to find out what I should actually optimize for. I'm setting up a station that shall be moved to India later. So my focus is to get all the sferics that are far away because there are no stations near by. And by the way I agree to a lot of arguments what the stations should be optimized for.

Now regarding the calculations: By default the station - once located there - might be getting good values because only detected strikes of that station will be "known" and so only those will be taken into consideration for calculation. Also there will be no other stations to compare with, so I'm asking myself what I should look for as soon as the station is there.

On the other hand I tried to compare the station with other stations around here while preparing it and it's pretty useless because they should optimize for different criteria, as meantioned above.

So what should I do? Well I faced one problem and I think that LMO (for my station https://www.lightningmaps.org/blitzortun...n_id=14922) nearly has the solution. There I have a signal view that is close to the internal one, but it also includes frequency analysis to find potential noise. Now still it's hard to distinguish between good and bad signals in detail. Will a filter setting that prevents noise lead to signals that cannot be used for detection? What is the best amplification? Do I have noise and from where?

And this is me feeling: For me the best help would be to have some information coming along with this display. So for every signal I can see there I would appreciate to get this data:
* was it used to detect a stroke?
* if yes, how far away was the stroke? Which direction?
* how many other stations were involved?
Again this is my feeling. Any ideas on that? Is it possible?

And one really off topic point. It would be helpful to optimize the mechanism to adjust the gains automatically. If the environment changes (e.g. TV or light on), then the signals get more noise. As soon as they reach the threshold I'm currently changing some settings because I think the automatic mode does not work for me very well. But then I have completely different efficiency which confuses me very much and does not help anymore at all. The approach I proposed above should still help to observe the signals. Then with this new display everyone should be able to optimize for his location in different situaltions. In the end - even when I can't influence the automatic - I can find some settings for different situations and decide offline which one to prefer and to keep as a static setting.
In India this noise challange will be much more I expect, because the invironment is a crowded city and conditions will change a lot. So the proposed analysis is one part, tuning the automatic could be an even more efficient part.

[orion_jb2001]

Interesting fresh observations.  The automatic feature of this TOA system has never, I don't think, been fully utilized.

[allsorts]

There I have a signal view that is close to the internal one, but it also includes frequency analysis to find potential noise. Now still it's hard to distinguish between good and bad signals in detail. Will a filter setting that prevents noise lead to signals that cannot be used for detection?

It's certainly possible but you'd have to be really vicious with the filters. Due to a couple of VLF transmitters within 30 odd miles I have the lo-pass option fitted and set to 17 kHz. Still have plenty of signals used by the system.

What is the best amplification? Do I have noise and from where?

Amplification, what ever works for your station and its location both local and regional. When the station is out in India you'll be wanting to cover as large and area as possible but being in a city may find that local conditions prevent the use of higher gains.

Noise, you'll know it when you see it. Strikes are random, similar but all different impluses withe the "sombreo" shape. Noise/interference may be constant or have relatively long on periods centered on given frequency(s) (SMPSU's in wall warts, CFL or LED bulbs). A regular pulse (electric fence). A single spike in the frequency plot or a visible sine wave in the signal plot (VLF transmitter).

And this is me feeling: For me the best help would be to have some information coming along with this display. So for every signal I can see there I would appreciate to get this data:
* was it used to detect a stroke?
* if yes, how far away was the stroke? Which direction?
* how many other stations were involved?
Again this is my feeling. Any ideas on that? Is it possible?

If you are logged into LMO and viewing your station the Archives > List gives distance direction and number of participants. What I have not see it show is if a given signal was used. There is a "Participated" field but I've never seen it.

You could try downloading and using the MyBlitzortung.php script. I've hacked that on the Archives > Search result page to give me a count of how many of the displayed strikes my stations signal was used for.

Automatic is quite slow in settling down on a set of gains etc, thinks days rather than hours, though it does track local enviromental changes quite rapidly.

[readbueno]

Hi Micha, Using full auto is not a good idea, it is better to set the station for its normal environment and then use "Auto adapt to noise" and the "Amplitude filters."
Even in India the lightning is going to be the biggest signal within a reasonable area and the number of station is growing, slowly but surely.
Low to medium gains and a reasonable threshold without going too much into "interference mode" except for very close lightning should probably still be the aim, rather than trying for distance.
Even here in Europe, there are far to many stations that seem to think that setting the gains high and the thresholds low and running in "Auto" will be O.K.
Looking at the better managed stations, They seldom have gains above 8*8 and many are even lower. The threshold should seldom be below 100.
This is a good tool for helping to find a good balance, between signals sent and strokes recorded.

https://www.meteomelin.be/staticfiles/bl...gion=1&id=

The best stations tend towards the top and the left and the "worst" stations towards the right hand side and the bottom right corner.
This does depend on the conditions at the time and there will be some movement, however some stations appear to be consistently doing well within the middle area.
I hope that you find this helpful. I look forward to seeing a new station always, but the first one in India will be special.

Brian.

With Europe and North America now moving into the quieter time of the year, now is a good time to try and get the best possible figures for signals to strokes,
If there is no Lightning near you then your station should not be sending thousand of signals per hour  ...

[allsorts]

Full Auto works well here, if I use manual seetings I have to keep an eye on it and tweak the settings very day or so. Is there much difference between "Automatic" mode and "Manual" with Auto Adapt to Noise and Amplitude filter set to on?

I like that plot, my station is currently nicely in the upper middle area. B-) And consdiering the nearest activity is 1500 miles away SE of Italy out over the Med not bad, it's not really trying hard either gains 10*10 threshold around 85 mV and noise around 35 mV. It's participated in 211/1000 strikes over the last 1h51m within 2000 miles. Drop the range to 1000 miles and it's 9/18 over 10h30m...

[Egon]

Hi Folks,

I would like to change the measure for the efficiency of the stations. It may not be appropriate to calculate only one numerical value, but rather to introduce different possibly even competing measures for the efficiency of the systems.

The first value could indicate how many of the transmitted signals are involved in the calculated strikes. The second value would be distance dependent and indicates how many impacts with a certain distance to the own detector the station was involved.

The current combination of these values (thate what we are doing now) seems to be not usefull for adjusting a detektor.

Any ideas for further efficiency measures?

/Egon

[mwaters]

Hi Folks,

I would like to change the measure for the efficiency of the stations. It may not be appropriate to calculate only one numerical value, but rather to introduce different possibly even competing measures for the efficiency of the systems.

The first value could indicate how many of the transmitted signals are involved in the calculated strikes. The second value would be distance dependent and indicates how many impacts with a certain distance to the own detector the station was involved.

The current combination of these values (thate what we are doing now) seems to be not usefull for adjusting a detektor.

Any ideas for further efficiency measures?

/Egon

This is wonderful news, Egon!

May I suggest you include the signals vs strikes ratio? The closer to 1:1, the better.

I use this to see how my station compares with others who consistently do well.