readme.915      Readme file for MIPS 915MHz wind profiler data          (S.Paech)

The 915 MHz Wind Profiler (915) data is in 3 forms*:
        - raw, binary spectra
        - ascii 30 min consensus
        - additional ascii format to enable simple viewing and perusal


The raw, binary files, containing spectra, are located in the 'raw' directory
and are named DYYJJJA.SPC and HYYJJJA.SPC where:

C   -> file contents - D for data, H for header
YY  -> two digit year
JJJ -> Julian day
A   -> reference, if more than one file

The raw, 30 min consensus wind and RASS temperature files are also located in
the 'raw' directory and are named WYYJJJ.CNS and TYYJJJ.CNS where:

C   -> file contents - W for winds, T for temperature
YY  -> two digit year
JJJ -> Julian day

Refer to the document "915_raw_data_format.doc" for the above raw data formats.
The winds plots in the 'images' directory are of these raw consensus winds*.


The additional ascii format data are located in the 'processed' directory in two
files - 915_YYYYMMDD_mom.dat and 915_YYYYMMDD_hrw.dat, where:

YYYY -> four digit year
MM   -> month
DD   -> day of month
mom  -> file contains doppler moments for each beam
hrw  -> file contains 3D wind solution for 3 successive beams centered on the
        vertical beam

The vertical motion in the hrw file is interpolated to the same heights as the
off-zenith beams.  If the user is interested in vertical motion, the user is
encouraged to use data from the mom file.  The vertical beams in the mom file
are the ones that have an elevation of 90 degrees.  The velocity reported in the
mom file is radial velocity, with negative numbers indicating velocity away from
the radar.  To obtain vertical velocity (w), the radial velocity must be
multiplied by -1.


*Wind directions in the hrw files have been adjusted to take into account the MIPS
 orientation during each deployment (specified in ihoplog.txt) and hence are the
 true wind directions.  This correction has NOT been made to the raw (SPC & CNS)
 data.

Refer to bamexlog.dat for information regarding MIPS setup during each deployment.

Please visit http://vortex.nsstc.uah.edu/mips/ for detailed instrumentation information.


Before you use any of this data, please contact us for recent updates and
possible corrections to the data sets.

If you have any questions, please contact:

Justin Walters
ph:  256-961-7008
email:  jwalters@nsstc.uah.edu