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+--- Thread: Efficiency (/showthread.php?tid=1261)
RE: Efficiency - orion_jb2001 - 2017-10-29
All interesting suggestions. A question though on how the system puts together the signals to come up with a figure. I too check on settings and what channels are being sent to the servers. Now pardon a "newbie" question re efficiency I some times see current high efficiency with stations that appear to be only sending 1 channel. Is that what happens with the system???? I would think that at a minimum a station should be sending channels 1A & 1B H fields to rate an efficiency, e fields channels a bonus. My thoughts on the basics of this.
RE: Efficiency - readbueno - 2017-10-29
(2017-10-29, 10:17)orion_jb2001 Wrote: All interesting suggestions. A question though on how the system puts together the signals to come up with a figure. I too check on settings and what channels are being sent to the servers. Now pardon a "newbie" question re efficiency I some times see current high efficiency with stations that appear to be only sending 1 channel. Is that what happens with the system???? I would think that at a minimum a station should be sending channels 1A & 1B H fields to rate an efficiency, e fields channels a bonus. My thoughts on the basics of this.
For some stations, setting up the channels one at a time, is a better solution than trying to sort out the mish-mashs of signals on the graphs, when several channels are operating?
If stations are still sending good and useful signals at these times, then they should still be entitled to whatever result the server gives them?
Limiting the results by imposing false conditions may be contra-indicative of what is needed, i.e. if a station has good signals on certain channels and not so good on other channels, it appears to be a reasonable idea to self restrict which channels are sent, until the problems could be resolved.
Obviously sending on three channels, or more, if your situation allows is the optimum, but as we know, not all stations are in this good situation and we should accept some variations for the best of what these stations can do.
Brian.
RE: Efficiency - allsorts - 2017-10-30
(2017-10-26, 21:03)Egon Wrote: I would like to change the measure for the efficiency of the stations.
That is good to hear, as you say the current measures are not overly useful in setting up a station. To get towards the top of the list they tend to push stations into sending lots of signals.
Part of this is the current distance values used (S up to 50 km, M up to 500 km and L up to 5,000 km) and the default sort being on L. Could the participation data be analyised against distance to produce an "optimum" detection distance? Then use that +/-, say, 500 km as the "M" measurement. S then going up to the lower M limit and L above the upper M lmit. The default sort being made on the M value.
The other problem is the use of all strikes within a region and the regions being very big. If you created smaller regions you get boundaries and problems with stations close to those boundaries. Seems sensible to use strikes in each of the distance ranges from the station as described above.
I quite like Cutty's:
Efficiency = Strokes Detected / Signals Sent
Effectivity = Strokes Detected / Signals Sent - Strokes Detected
Being based purely on the numbers from a given station it removes the influence of the total region count which generally has the affect of pushing a station that sends few but high quality signals down the list.
Not sure how to combine those with a distance. "signals sent" doesn't have any distance information but does that matter? I don't think it does.
The Signals v Strikes graphic is an excellent visual and quick check for "how is my station doing"? As there isn't a line at whcih a station swtiches for "good" to "bad", I think a fixed shaded background color would make interpretation a little easier, green (upper/mid left) to red (lower right).
RE: Efficiency - cutty - 2017-10-30
(2017-10-30, 21:06)allsorts Wrote:(2017-10-26, 21:03)Egon Wrote: I would like to change the measure for the efficiency of the stations.
~~~
I quite like Cutty's:
Efficiency = Strokes Detected / Signals Sent
Effectivity = Strokes Detected / Signals Sent - Strokes Detected
Being based purely on the numbers from a given station it removes the influence of the total region count which generally has the affect of pushing a station that sends few but high quality signals down the list.
Not sure how to combine those with a distance. "signals sent" doesn't have any distance information but does that matter? I don't think it does.
~~~
Actually, it does... in a 'thought experiment'... I just didn't include my thoughts and examples I played with, since the 'signals' cannot be 'predicated' , and for basic simplicity of the suggestion...
The thought experiment runs sort of like this:
Briefly, divide the stations according to 'intent'... say, for example, three groups.
Group ONE > operators who haven't bothered to define or optimize well. Anything 'in'.,.. Anything 'Out'.
Group TWO > Stations that have established a 'relatively' quiet operational invironment, normally function with a 'High" "Strokes to signals", and have optimized for 'distance'... would include many of the 'dual' region / fringe stations perhaps. Since they already operate with 'low' 'excess' signals. They can operate for example as the 'group greater than 1200 km'. Their signals would also include the signals of a nearby 'group three', of course.
Group THREE> Stations optimized for <1200 km... those that run many excess signals when using high gains and / or low thresholds, or with frequent 'sporadics' that could be eliminated, or minimized with lower gains / and or higher thresholds. They now optimize for reduced distance. Optimizing in this fashon also lessens the typical "excess signals' relative to 'detections within 1200 km'.
And you could have perhaps a smaller group, perhaps operating E field only, or C Horizontal only, operating at distances <600km or any other subdivision similar...
The decrease in 'out of distance' signals, with an optimizing within distance should allow the same similar formulas too be used... though a group 2 station might show a 'higher effieciency' or 'lower efficiency' than a station in group 3, or vice versa, the rules are the same, and the 'comparisons' similar, within the group. not necessarily outside the group.
Both groups should be much more efficient and effective than MOST of the 'group ones'... and my 'gut feeling' is that watching numbers between groups TWO and THREE would actually show similar efficiency / effectivity numbers... IF the group TWOs had strokes <1200 km subtracted from both signals and strokes ,,,
Again, an operator shouldn't compare 'outside his Group" , ...
But... Especially on group TWOs... a station should establish, over time, that it BELONGS in group TWO ! To do so, they'd have to operate as a GROUP one until the "Higher Effeciency / Effectivity" numbers qualified them as a 'group TWO'... if a station degrades over some time frame, than they should be 'demoted' to group ONE, unless they opted to go for Group 3.
All stations would begin as group ONE, and then optimize for, and qualify for group TWO or THREE. Actually, I think the server can do that automatically, since it already is capable of breaking strokes down by distance.d A 'quiet' group TWO station might not have as many 'signals' at high latitudes seasonally, but the 'noise signals' may remain essentially the same.... for a Group THREE, some adjustmen might need to be made seasonally, since 'theoretically' their 'local noise' soruces would remain at similar levels year round, while signal numbers rise and fall.
In those cases a comparison with 'degradation' over time of total 'signals' might be applied.
RE: Efficiency - pasense - 2017-10-31
Cutty, I like your proposal, especially the distinction between local (G3) and long distance (G2) stations. One of the problems ist now to find out to what degree a station sends real sferics, even from very distant strokes or only spurious signals. So far, I look at the life signal from my station to see if they look fine, but this is of course not really an objective measure. Looking for a solution I just stumbled on the following:
http://wwlln.net/spectra.html
These plots show the sferics as thin vertical lines and the noise sources as horizontal ones. This gives a very good idea on the type of noise environment the station is working in. Do we have any means to generate plots like this for our stations??
I miss also other indicators. Currently, only a few percent of the signals my station sends are used in strokes by the network, but looking at the signals I am quite sure that almost all of them are from real sferics. To judge if I could reduce the number of signals I would need a histogram of the peak voltage of signal sent and another one of the peak voltage of signals used for strokes. Preferably this should be a long-time histogram, not only for the last hour. I could then decide if I could raise the threshold in order to concentrate more on the signals useable for the network. Without this information, its almost impossible to make a reasonable choice.
In short, I miss a number of indicators that would allow me to make a objective analysis of the station.
RE: Efficiency - readbueno - 2017-10-31
Hi Pasense, Nice graphs. Even if we do not have the ability to do this, then stations must learn about their local environment and make the necessary adjustments.
Using the tools available, the probes themselves or even a simple AM portable radio, most of the relevant problems can be mitigated.
Help is also available from more experienced stations, if people will ask by pm or email, and it need not be done in the public view.
Some people seem very reticent to ask simple questions, maybe, for fear of appearing stupid or silly. Whatever?
We must overcome this and do all that we can to help these stations without belittling or humiliating them.
It just takes time and vigilence/diligence and having taken on the responsibility for one of these stations, it should be considered part of the "self-training" to get it working as well as possible in each situation.
O.K. I have drifted off topic again, but I feel that this might be a significant part of the problem.
Brian.
RE: Efficiency - pasense - 2017-10-31
readbueno, it is much easier with a number of better indicators to analyse the performance of the station. So far, it takes a lot of time and many people simple do not have this. To condense the performance of the station down to two numbers is not easy, at least I am missing some more analysis tools.
RE: Efficiency - cutty - 2017-10-31
(2017-10-31, 07:39)pasense Wrote: Cutty, I like your proposal, especially the distinction between local (G3) and long distance (G2) stations. One of the problems ist now to find out to what degree a station sends real sferics, even from very distant strokes or only spurious signals. So far, I look at the life signal from my station to see if they look fine, but this is of course not really an objective measure. Looking for a solution I just stumbled on the following:
http://wwlln.net/spectra.html
These plots show the sferics as thin vertical lines and the noise sources as horizontal ones. This gives a very good idea on the type of noise environment the station is working in. Do we have any means to generate plots like this for our stations??
The 'waterfall' spectrums are great... in a manner of speaking, the 'compression' hatch marks, when they're turned on, in effect perform an analogous presentation.... 'hashed' areas considered 'noise.
Let's not overly digest the suggestion... any 'signal' entering the system, and hits trigger threshold will be a 'signal sent'. Now, a large portion of these are, in fact, a sferic. For Fringe area stations, at distance, for example, they may NOT be recognized by enough other stations to be called a 'strike'. So, they degrade the 'efficiency' . 'effectivity' percentage. Now, as other stations come online, or optimize better, the same sferic, previously just 'noise' can be recognized as a 'stroke'. Remember takes 4 stations minimum to locate. And some geographic regions with high density of stations require more stations minimum... hopefully improving location error (deviation).
Enough stations can improve everyone's 'efficiency / effectivity' to some degree. Enough stations would potentially also enable the 'timing' of signals to be 'tightened' perhaps, thus making a dramatic improvement in deviation.
RE: Efficiency - readbueno - 2017-10-31
Pasense, I agree, but the initial instructions state quite clearly that this is not Plug-n-play. Some experimentation is going to be needed to get the best out of each situation.
Cutty, In Europe this validation count is much larger than four, I have seen it vary between 11 and 13. Even in Africa, with only Two mainland stations I believe the validation is 8.
In the case of Pasense for example, there are others, but he is in this conversation, His station has many very clean strokes being received, but there are not enough stations in position to validate these strokes.
This is the opposite of the effect in densely populated areas where several hundred stations may receive the same stroke and only a few are actually needed to validate its position.
I think this is where your grouping idea could be developed, these less populated areas need less strict criteria for validation, at least until more stations are located in suitable areas to make this less of a problem?
I can think of at least half a dozen stations that this is most critical, and if proven stations were admitted to this group on a performance basis, then it might improve the situation in these areas?
Brian.
RE: Efficiency - pasense - 2017-10-31
Cutty, would it not be reasonable to discuss which tools are missing to enable the improvement of the station's perrformance?