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  System Blue 19.5 PCB
Posted by: k2ors - 2022-04-11, 14:50 - Forum: General Discussion - Replies (10)

Hi,
   I have a System Blue PCB 19.5.
I followed the instructions for 19.4 and removed the onboard voltage regulator. Is there an external regulator that is required or should I have left the onboard regulator on?
 Is 19.5 a good functioning board? I can't find references to it on the web site, a friend in Massachusetts obtained a System Blue at approximately the same time as I received mine and was never able to get it to work and he is a very experienced electrical engineer.
Thank you,
Warren K2ORS

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  Repair of damaged System Blue
Posted by: Roger_G0SWC - 2022-03-28, 21:13 - Forum: Hardware, Software, Lightning Physics - Replies (1)

I have reciently received back from Falkland Islands (VP8) a system Blue. This system control box only shows a single red Led. The damage report suggested the PSU was damaged by a close proximity lighting strike. This appeared to have placed a very large voltage spike onto the PCB. There was no indication of a date when this strike happened. I'm not sure if this unit plus antennas ever really worked. I know there were local problems with linking to a computer for internet access particularly for long periods.

My real question is can this System Blue be returned for repair or at least a review.

Roger G0SWC  Confused

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  Detector Coverage For Western Australia
Posted by: Smithy - 2022-03-01, 12:36 - Forum: General Discussion - No Replies

Hello All;
I'm just new to Blitzortung but have been operating my own weather station for a few years now (enthusiast - data send to WOW Weather). As you may know Western Australia is a fairly large chunk of land (2.6 million sq Km), yet there are only 5 detectors in total, all located within a small area in and around the capital - Perth. I live about 1600kn north of the capital in a small town near Karratha (in the Pilbara). The north west of our state has some of the most active storm/lightening areas around - a weekend in February a few weeks back recorded some 2 million lightening strikes in the Gascoyne, Pilbara and Kimberly regions.
I have recently ordered a Blue system - and joined the 6000+ waiting list. Hopefully things will move alone fairly quickly as views from our porch on pretty much any given night in summer reminds me there is a hell of strike data that is just waiting to be captured!

Also just putting it out there to anyone else who lives in this region that is also interested in setting up a detector is these parts...please feel free to introduce yourself and have a chat!!

Regards
Smithy

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  Replacing the System Blue mini with micro USB connector
Posted by: hazelnut - 2022-02-26, 07:29 - Forum: Hardware, Software, Lightning Physics - Replies (4)

Has anyone tried replacing the mini with a micro USB connector on the System Blue?  It looks like it should be a direct swap and micro USB cables, especially longer ones, are far easier to source than mini USB thanks to the Pi ecosystem.

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Lightbulb Analogic Blitzortung
Posted by: Elektrofeldmeter - 2022-02-07, 19:36 - Forum: Hardware, Software, Lightning Physics - No Replies

Hi, 

A new thread regarding the topic of lightning physic. I found this article in wikipedia extremly interesting and I want to try it.... Franklin bells. Below some pictures of it:

   

   

   

The part a) consists in a kind of antenna totally isolated from the ground. I bought a metallic sphere in order to avoid any kind of corona discharge of the structure. The sphere is connected to the Franklins bell structure, more exactly on the left bell. 

On b) we can see that the left bell is very close to the right one and in-between there is a small metallic bead (piercing material) also isolated from the ground which can oscillate freely between the two bells. A pendulum so to speak. The right bell is connected to the ground.

During keraunic activity the antenna and de facto the bell is charged, the small bead (if initially connected to the antenna bell) will also be charged with the same polarity. At some points the charge is high enough so that the electrostatic forces repulse the small bead to the ground charged bell, and vice versa... The system is ringing.

I thought that this was not really efficiently working, the electrical storm of yesterday proved me that I was wrong.

   

Another evidence of this principlein this video Franklin's bell.

Do not hesitate to send me feedback if you want some more information or if you have questions. 

Looking forward to it.

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Lightbulb Keraunic activity over Mainz/Frankfurt
Posted by: Elektrofeldmeter - 2022-01-26, 16:38 - Forum: Website, Maps and Applications - Replies (1)

Hi, 

I was looking for some hotspots in order to take pictures of lightnings (taking all possible security measure of course) and I could not find any good way of accessing to this information. 
I wrote a script in order to extract the CSV data and to stich them temporally and I reprocessed the data afterward into Mathematica. Doing so I managed to generate the attached pictures.

   
   

For those interested in local density plot. 
Below the script written in Python using the Selenium library. This script needs to be edited in order to perform your task, you need to define:

  • The location of your chromedriver
  • The download path
  • Your login on Blitzortung
  • Your password on Blitzortung
  • The start date for the data collection
  • The min/max latitude and longitude of the area of interest
Code:
#!/usr/bin/python3

import time
import datetime

from selenium import webdriver

from selenium.webdriver.support.ui import WebDriverWait
from selenium.webdriver.support import expected_conditions
from selenium.webdriver.common.by import By

path_download     = ""
path_chromedriver = "" #were chromedriver is stored download at https://chromedr
iver.chromium.org/downloads
login       = ""       #your login
pwd         = ""       #your path
start_year  = 2015     #when to start
start_month = 6        #idem
start=day   = 1        #idem
lon_min     = 49.2     #longitude min
lon_max     = 50.2     #longitude max
lat_min     = 7.8      #latitude min
lat_max     = 8.9      #latitude max


options = webdriver.ChromeOptions() ;
prefs = {"download.default_directory" : path_download}
options.add_experimental_option("prefs",prefs);

driver = webdriver.Chrome(executable_path = path_chromedriver, chrome_options=op
tions)

wait = WebDriverWait(driver, 30);

driver.get("https://www.blitzortung.org/en/login.php")
time.sleep(1.)
driver.find_element_by_xpath("/html/body/div[2]/div/p[3]/span/span[5]").click()
driver.find_element_by_name("login_username").send_keys("EMP_22")
time.sleep(0.2)
driver.find_element_by_name("login_password").send_keys("EFM_27")
time.sleep(2.)
driver.find_element_by_class_name("center").click()
driver.find_element_by_xpath("//input[@type='submit']").click()


date_start = datetime.datetime(start_year,  start_month,  start_day, 0, 0, 0)
for i in range(2000):
    date_end   = date_start+datetime.timedelta(days=2)
    if date_end > datetime.datetime.now():
        exit()
   
    epoch_start = int(date_start.timestamp())
    epoch_end   = int(date_end.timestamp())

    http_address  = "https://www.blitzortung.org/en/archive_data.php?stations_us
ers=0&selected_numbers=*"
    http_address += "&end_date=" + str(epoch_end)
    http_address += "&end_time=" + str(0)
    http_address += "&start_date=" + str(epoch_start)
    http_address += "&start_time=" + str(0)
    http_address += "&rawdata_image=0"
    http_address += "&north=" + str(lon_max)
    http_address += "&west="  + str(lat_min)
    http_address += "&east="  + str(lat_max)
    http_address += "&south=" + str(lon_min)
    http_address += "&map=0&width_orig=640&width_result=640&agespan=60&frames=12
&delay=100&last_delay=1000&show_result=1"
    driver.get(http_address)
    driver.switch_to.frame(0)
    #time.sleep(5.)
    print(date_start)
    print(date_end)
    #filename_out = date_start.strftime("%Y%m%d")+"_"+date_end.strftime("%Y%m%d"
)+".csv.gz"

    elt = driver.find_element_by_xpath("//a[contains(@href,'raw')]")#.get_attrib
ute('href'))
    elt.click()

    driver.switch_to.default_content();
    time.sleep(0.5)
    date_start = date_end

driver.close
driver.quit()


Best regards

Antoine

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  Any chance to get a station in Sardinia?
Posted by: prohu - 2022-01-22, 16:57 - Forum: General Discussion - Replies (1)

Dear all, 

our no-profit organisation (www.sardegna-clima.it ) is very interested in installing a lightning station in centre Sardinia as the Western Mediterranean seems not very well covered.

I've already posted the interested on the relevant page but being "Italy" seems that we are not on a pretty well position...

I was wondering if there is any chance to get the equipment in a reasonable time.

Many thanks in advance.

Enrico 

www.sardegna-clima.it

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  Tonga volcanic eruption
Posted by: MarkusVe - 2022-01-17, 21:51 - Forum: General Discussion - Replies (1)

It looks like lightning from the Jan 15, 4:15 UT volcanic eruption in Tonga are visible in archive data:
https://www.blitzortung.org/de/historica....php?map=0
However the timestamps seem to be one our late, i.e. 5:15 - 6:30. Perhaps the web interface is actually showing CET instead of UTC?

Regards from Nürnberg,
Markus

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  Lightning not showing on the map
Posted by: deesalsphotos - 2021-12-26, 09:27 - Forum: General Discussion - No Replies

hey everyone - just wondering why lightning strikes around Townsville Queensland Australia are not showing up on your map..we are having a great storm atm with GC lightning strikes - is there a issue?? would like to be a server if needed...also why is NSW covered but no other state...hope someone can help me out

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  May we have an update RE: Blitzortung.org & Lightningmaps.org
Posted by: SchwabTh - 2021-12-19, 01:22 - Forum: General Discussion - Replies (3)

[b]What is the status of the websites & their servers/support?[/b]

https://www.blitzortung.org/en/forum.php

http://www.lightningmaps.org/blitzortung/america/

****I understand there was loss of data servers due to a fire and that the data servers were restored.

****There have been forum posts regarding new versions of hardware and firmware that have not come to fruition.

****Additional posts cite issues with website errors in which stations are listed in duplicate, triplicate

****Some stations are fully functional detecting lightning but are not contributing to "strikes" and are at 0%

Have the developers stopped maintenance/developing? 

An update from Tobias and colleagues will be greatly appreciated...

Thank you from Rochester, Minnesota, USA

https://tinyurl.com/sfwrffpm

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