I think I had a somewhat unique opportunity today to watch the Beta Realtime Map software in action, due to an isolated storm and a somewhat unique vantage point.

I travelled about 100 miles from my home to attend a meeting at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. The lay of the land is somewhat unique, with relatively flat prairie in all directions, only smaller rolling hills. The city is not too big, and there are almost no tall buildings except for the Mayo Clinic. From that building it is only a mile or so to farmland all around, very 'un-metropolitan' and quite rural compared to most cities with a building this tall.

I was in a 19 story building, looking westerly, with a large span of windows in a meeting room. I had my laptop watching a relatively zoomed in view of the map, showing strikes in realtime.

As the storm moved in, and lightning from the cloud to ground was visible with relatively high ceilings to the cloud, and clear visibility to the ground strike points until the rain moved in behind the strikes, I had the opportunity to see several strikes which did not show on the map, which was expected and has been discussed by the developers.

More beautiful, however, was to see a nice cloud to ground strike just to the south of a road going to the west of the building. Within a fraction of a second a second strike occurred just to the north of the road. Within three seconds both these strikes were plotted on the map, and in locations that would correspond to the north of and south of locations in comparison to the road. The plotting occurred in the same sequence as the appearance of the strikes, but I don't know if the servers calculate in any order or just as they get enough data to verify a strike. The storm approached with more intercloud lightning, much of which showed up on the map, and a few more cloud to ground, all showing on the plot map, and as far as general location from what I observed to what the map showed, being in very good agreement with observed vs. plotted positions.

Beautiful job done, developers! I can only hope to be so lucky as to have a safe window on an approaching storm again, and the system up and running to plot them. Very exciting. I hope this wasn't too lengthy of a posting, but wanted to share this opportunity to do a visual verification of approximate strike position and very rapid plotting. Dale

Hi, the iPhone app doesn't seem to be working for me, all I get is 6 lightning strikes off the coast of Africa. This has been going on for a month or so. Any ideas how to fix this? thanks!

Hi folks,

here is something new: http://www.lightningmaps.org/realtime

This map displays all strokes of the last 60 minutes in all regions. New ones are added almost in real time! The delay is up to 5 seconds. Station owners can check the signals or turn on their buzzers, wait for some lightning signal and a few seconds later there should be a new marker in the map. The best results can be seen in Central Europe due to the high station density.

Please note that this is a very first beta version! There's still some work to do. We can not guarantee for anything!

Have fun!

Hi !

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Hallo,

mich würde mal interessieren, wie genau die Blitze geortet werden können? Mich würde es sehr interessieren, wo in meiner Stadt (Heidelberg) die Blitze einschlagen, wenn ein Gewitter in vollem Gange ist. Leider kann man die Karte nicht nah genug zoomen. Sind die Archive da besser? Ich überlege mir, ob ich mich nicht an dem Projekt beteilige. Ich bin Hobbyelektroniker und suche derzeit nach einem Projekt - und Blitzortung würde mich brennend interessieren. Ich habe zwar ein 40MHz-Oszilloskop, aber keinen Sprektrumsanalysator zu Hause. Und von HF habe ich leider auch keine Ahnung. Mein Bereich ist die Digitaltechnik mit µControllern, CPLDs und FPGAs. Gibt es zu den Antennen und Verstärkern gute Anleitungen?

Viele Grüße
Sebihepp

Wrote many letters to different addresses are found here to see prices on the site .. no one answers!
So how do I contact you??
There is little information, information is not complete ..
what, who, where?
I can buy, how much .. how much will cost delivery ..
On http://www.blitzortung.org/Webpages/inde...=de&page=3
response robot ... no return address .. or anyone write .. or anyone to ask a question ..
And on forum peace and quiet .. only dead men with braids standing ..

Ну и нахрена такое надо?)))

I've been actively experimenting with sferics receiver, and TOA lighting detectors for several years. Very interested in adding a detector at my home in Central Alabama (near Birmingham) in the Southeastern US.

Unfortunately, time has robbed me of my eyesight for close-up work, and made my hands too unsteady for SMT type soldering. I'm looking for another forum member who would be willing to assemble the kit on my behalf. Happy to have complete kit shipped directly to your location. I can also pay you for your time and labor via PayPal, or money order.

If you're interested please contact me by PM or offline. I'm grateful for any assistance.

73,

Les Rayburn, N1LF
121 Mayfair Park
Maylene, AL 35114
USA

EM63nf

Is there something wrong with blitzortung web site. I can't update my user data. When I hit
save it goes to the European map. It does not update my information.

Something is wrong with the Blitzortung Web Site!

Has it been compromised !?

Paul
Palm Beach Gardens FL

Hallo zusammen

Ich habe ein paar grundlegende Fragen zu den Signalen, resp den Channels des Systems RED:

Ich habe den Amplifier 1 - PCB 12.3 - FW 1.6. Daran sind zwei ferride rod's angeschlossen. Welche Channels sind das nun ? Channel 1A und 1B ? Auf was bezieht sich dann Channel 1C ?

Wenn ich die Signal-Seite anschaue, dann habe ich das Bild wie unten angehängt (signal.png). Ist es normal, dass ein Channel (hier eben der grüne) so weit unten ist ? Müsste sich der nicht (wie der rote) um die 0-Linie bewegen ?

Auf der Status-Seite des Amplifiers sehe ich für den Channel B dass der Trigger deaktiviert ist (amplifiers.png). Ist das so gewollt und es gilt der Selbe Wert wie für Channel A ? Warum aber kann man dann für Channel B einen Treshold definieren, wenn der dann (siehe signal.png) nicht angezeigt wird ?

Besten Dank für eure Auskunft.

Gruss Letraz

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I have been experimenting with the lightning strikes and the gain factor of antenna and preamp.

When the gain is set a little to high with consideration to the antenna being too high in receive
performance we have desensitizing effect. An auto gain feature would work well . As I discovered
the newest TOA board that has come out version 10 I saw spoke of an auto gain feature. This
I guess addresses the issue I have found.

I have designed my antenna as a 2-foot pvc loop antenna with 25 turns, 22gauge stranded
wire and gain set at preamp of 43x Gain. Channel A,B jumper set on pin 2.

The preamp board is PCB 5 version 7, Data board PCB 6 version 8.

Are there any newer preamp board versions available?? Please let me know.
I will be looking into an auto gain method. Or finding a setting that fits
both distance and local strikes which will give best effciencies at 5000km
and moderate level efficiencies.

The best we can do is use a gain that will fit most instances of nearby high activity
storms as well as distance ones. Or find a way to build an auto gain preamp.

Paul

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