First Station in Philippines

[RPH]

Hello dear Blitzortung.org participants and weather enthusiast,

I want to Setup the first Blitzortung.org station in my home country, the Philippines. Should I order the latest Hardware for system red from Egon in Germany or from another source, maybe from the USA? Since I am in Germany most of the time it would be probably faster to get the set in Germany?
I have read that Egon was on vacation until end of july and that new pcb's had to be reordered. What is the easiest and fastest way to get a complete system red kit? Did the new pcb boards arrive already?

Thanx

Ricky

[cutty]

Hi Ricky....
Yes, you'll want to get the kit parts through Blitzortung.... circuit boards are only available through the developers. And many of the signal processing and filtering parts are quite critical, to send data that the server understands. Others less so, but the stations should be as close to 'identical' as possible... especially with the E field filtering. even the LEDs are specially selected.
Why don't you enter your inquiry at http://www.blitzortung.org/Webpages/index.php?&page=3. We need more stations out in that area.

When kits begin shipping again, it will post here, and on that linked page, and likely on the "What's new" page.

Mike

[Michael.Sanders]

Ricky,

Be good to have a few more stations around this area. I am a little lonesome here by myself in Bangkok, but I still locate a couple of long distance strokes over Indonesia and Australia every day. Just last night I got 4 bolts located just to the south of the Philippines, in conjunction with my colleagues in Australia. There's no shortage of lightning around the SE Asia area; it's very active around the Malaysia, Borneo and Sulawesi areas at the moment, we just need a few more stations here to harvest the data.

[pmorrison]

Ricky,

Be good to have a few more stations around this area. I am a little lonesome here by myself in Bangkok, but I still locate a couple of long distance strokes over Indonesia and Australia every day. Just last night I got 4 bolts located just to the south of the Philippines, in conjunction with my colleagues in Australia. There's no shortage of lightning around the SE Asia area; it's very active around the Malaysia, Borneo and Sulawesi areas at the moment, we just need a few more stations here to harvest the data.

Hi Michael and Ricky,
I'm in the final stages of assembling a kit in Singapore, if you get one running in the Philippines then there will be four in the region (including Michael in Bangkok and a station that apparently exists in Cambodia) and we'll be able to register strike locations.

I second Michael's opinion that there is no shortage of lightning around this area. I look forward to contributing to the project.

Peter.

[Michael.Sanders]

Peter,

That'll be great to have a station in Singapore. Nearly all the strokes I get, are in conjunction with the station in Cambodia, two stations in Darwin, and two stations in Perth. Central Indonesia is about the mid-point for these 6 stations, so this is where most of my detected "strokes" come from. A third station in the area should make thins more interesting for everyone

[pmorrison]

Peter,

That'll be great to have a station in Singapore. Nearly all the strokes I get, are in conjunction with the station in Cambodia, two stations in Darwin, and two stations in Perth. Central Indonesia is about the mid-point for these 6 stations, so this is where most of my detected "strokes" come from. A third station in the area should make thins more interesting for everyone

...two years later.
Ok, I'm finally online with station 1612. GPS lock acquired and plenty of clicks coming from the buzzer. Now I need a lightning storm (there was a tremendous one last night) so I can confirm that at least some of those clicks match strikes.

[Michael.Sanders]

That's good news to see a station in Singapore !. Since the earlier post a few years ago, the stations in Cambodia and Indonesia have gone off-line. It was during that time that my station in Bangkok was working most effectively, so hoping it will start to pick up again. I've been offline myself for the past 2 weeks, since I've been travelling.

I've got my station setup for long distance, so when there is any local storm activity, it just goes into saturation mode. But overall, I seem to get a higher average strike count by going for distance, rather than the local stuff.

[wbkkwx]

Resurrecting an old thread...

There is now station at Bantayan Island, Philippines, operating since Nov 2017. Station 2027. Performs quite well IMHO.

Singapore's 1612 isn't running 24/7 and the gain might be quite low as I don't see it often?

As for me, first station from Malaysia, since June 2017. and it has been quite fun soldering up the components to the board, albeit a learning curve. One observation is when dark clouds comes signal rate shoots up (and my efficiency goes to 0), but since I am the only one around here it is hard to detect lightning strokes locally here as a few more stations are needed. A second station will be up and running hopefully in March, around Tawau, Sabah. In the mean time, I guess a sudden rise in signal rate + cloudy weather signifies rain is coming soon. Guess it's a extra help to forecast the weather.

[wbkkwx]

and... another station came online from Philippines at Mindanao. Same owner as of Singapore's 1612, which is also online and seems to be able to detect more strokes now. Maybe adjusted gain settings.

If anyone in the region is planning to add stations but gets daunted with the soldering, you can drop me a message. We can discuss and I can see what I can help with.

[pmorrison2000]

and... another station came online from Philippines at Mindanao. Same owner as of Singapore's 1612, which is also online and seems to be able to detect more strokes now. Maybe adjusted gain settings.

If anyone in the region is planning to add stations but gets daunted with the soldering, you can drop me a message. We can discuss and I can see what I can help with.

Hi there, well spotted! Yes, a friend took one of my rigs over to the Philippines with him and has set it up in what must be a very noise-free spot. It is doing quite well.

As for poor old station 1612, I'm afraid it sits in a ground-floor condo on the side of a hill in an area (an entire country) thick with air conditioners, refrigerators, wi-fi units, and all manner of other noisy stuff. It is lucky to pick up anything at all in those circumstances.

I haven't really helped the situation by fiddling with the amp settings. Seems that it's either swamped in noise or oblivious to anything but a direct hit.

Peter.

[wbkkwx]

Hi there Peter,

Oh, is it moved to Mindanao recently? I only noticed it came online recently. I was under the impression that it was in Mindanao for sometime and seldoms get online (from the data from lightning maps statistics). From my observation, it drops off time to time, either I guess of power supply issues or perhaps internet connection not stable enough. This is common in Philippines. I did read from postings from Japan (Professor Narita-San, Shonan Institute of Technology) that there is a memorandum between them and your friend in Philippines for the setup in Mindanao? I might be wrong though.

Yes I can understand your situation. Over my place there is also quite a lot of air conditioners from my surrounding neighbours, shoplots and offices. As much as I wish to have a low noise environment that would not be the case unfortunately. Then there is always those interference which I have no idea where is it from, and can only hope it doesn't occur too often. Anyway, you are still contributing. keep it running! You have a third unit?

Anywho, there is slowly a few more stations coming online around here. So hopefully more strokes can be detected around here and North West Australia. Tonuonu is certainly helping to expand, as well as Narita-san. If only I have pockets as deep as them haha.

[wbkkwx]

[img]IMG_3754 by [url=https://www.flickr.com/photos/78094118@N07/][/url][/img]

Spoke too soon and the interference appeared. 3 spikes at around 22kHz, 40kHz and 62kHz.

[wbkkwx]

Another unique observation... signal rates spiked during the midnight, as people were playing with fire crackers, fireworks to celebrate the arrival of Chinese New Year. I guess you don't get that anywhere else apart from this region of the world. Maybe bar Guy Fawkes Night and New Year celebrations...