LightningMaps.org: Real-time Lightning Map

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I run station 1187.  Is it common that my station is not used for very close strikes?  I don't see my station used for strikes occurring closer than 200km when viewing http://www.lightningmaps.org/realtime? map.

that's possible.. it may be that you have too much gain, low threshold, and are sending poor data.. If your're  aiming at 'distance', the near strikes may be 'distorted'... it's also possible to go into brief interference mode with near cell activity....  Remember, this is a 'network'... no station really stands alone...

I turned down the gain and that solved the close-in detection issue.  But.....now I have to manually turn up the gain to contribute to longer-distance locations.

Yeah, mine works that way... in normal operation, mine will go 'interference' with cells about that distance, if they're very active... and that is one of the system 'designs', if you will... I had to learn to accept the interference mode with close storms, until they pass... and let the network stations do the locating.... some of this 'quirkiness' may be resolved to a degree with "Blue"... but the system actually works this way... there are more 'high' frequencies in nearby cells, more data, and if our gain etc is too high there may be such 'distortion' and so much 'impulse' energy that the system discards the signals, even if it doesn't trigger interference.  The opposite is true for 'long distance' skywaves.. which are generally of the lower frequency energy components... over time I reached a compromise with my 'normal' settings, and don't operate my system in 'auto' for example... accepting interference mode with nearby cells, in order to produce quality from, say, 200km to about 1500km... other stations take care of the rest.