Hallo zusammen,

für den Aufbau (vorerst mal nur ein Test) einer Station in Namibia (S 23° 27' 39,0" / E 18° 01' 04,0") suche ich diverse Platinen vom System RED :

- Controller PCB10
- Verstärker PCB13
- Vorverstärker PCB14

Wie gesagt, nur die Platinen, alles andere kann ich selbst besorgen, bzw. habe es eigentlich schon vorrätig. Da es aber das letzte Jahr keine Platinen mehr für deutsche Stationen gab, versuche ich so verzhweifelt noch die eine oder andere Platine zu bekommen. Ich gehe im April wieder nach Namibia, wäre schön, wenn ich bis dahin schon eine Station zusammen hätte. Ansonsten muß das bis 2016 warten (System BLUE ?).

Thomas

Dear participants and all others who are interested in Blitzortung.org!

First of all, we want to thank you all for your support! Thanks to you, Blitzortung.org has grown to a great international community and it makes really a lot of fun!

2014 was by far the "best" year ever. Due to the interest in the new real-time maps, there was a big growth in popularity. Our main websites Blitzortung.org and LightningMaps.org together had 50 million page views. There were dozens of news articles online and in newspapers in several countries about the project. Some participants even had interviews with TV stations and there were also talks about the project on weather congresses.

Additionally we also had thousands of requests about the hardware, but unfortunately we could not satisfy all of them. This year we want to improve the hardware availability with a new generation of lightning detectors.


Announcement of System BLUE

Our forthcoming lightning detection hardware will be called System BLUE. We are working very intensive on the development of this system, but can still not say any fixed date when it will be available - hopefully in second quarter of 2015.

The System BLUE main board will be offered already assembled, gets some additional digital components, and some changes in the analog part. The main board is designed such that it fits into a housing which we also want to offer. In best case, you will get a completely assembled main device.

       


System RED

We do not offer controller or amplifier boards of System RED any more. We still have a few kits as reserve, but only for the case that some well-functioning stations fail or for strategically very important locations. Please do not request these kits but leave your e-mail address with your location on the "Cover your Area" page here.

All participants that currently are running a System RED do not need to update their system. Its signal quality and overall performance is similar or even equal as the upcoming BLUE system. By the way: If you have some unassembled hardware, RED PCBs or spare parts left, then you might want to offer them in our forum now. Other users might still need them.


System GREEN

Many users are still working with the good old GREEN stations. These stations are used to build up the TOA network. Big thanks to all you pioneers for your efforts.

Unfortunately, these GREEN detectors can not record all needed signal information. This is one of the main advantages of System RED and BLUE which becomes increasingly important for improving the location quality. That is, the significance of the GREEN stations is already decreasing and will decrease in future. However, we can continue for a longer time the assignment of the GREEN signals to the computed strikes, but also want to announce all honesty, that the GREEN stations will not further contribute to the computations sometime when we have enough RED and BLUE station. This might already happen this year.

We announce this information already now such that all GREEN users have enough time to think about a change. We also hope that you understand our decision that we will not create new accounts for system GREEN detectors. Our aim is to substitute these detectors and not to change the owners. All participants with a running GREEN station will treated preferentially and probably get some special advantages when they want to exchange their station into a BLUE one.


There will be another newsletter with more detailed information about the new hardware and other topics within the next months. Feel free to leave your thoughts and comments here. Please note, that we currently might not have enough time to answer all your questions here, but we will try our best to inform you about upcoming news as soon as possible.


Have fun, thank you and best regards

The Blitzortung.org crew

Hallo Egon & Tobi!

Kann es sein, dass die nicht mehr startenden Windows-Tracker (sind ja mitlerweilen schon einige) mit dem Problem des Datenservers zusammenhängen?

Gruß
Olivier

Well it is up. H and E field seem to be recording. I can see detection lines coming from my station on lightningmaps .org. Haven't done any fine tuning yet. If someone can look at my signals and let me know how they compare with other stations.

Jeff

Hi,

I got rained out this afternoon, so I am just testing the H field side, inside. I do not have a shielded cable going from the controller to my LAN. Now all seems to be working but I get the check network cable connection. The appears not to be any connection at the controller end or the LAN. Is it because of the non shielded cable or is there something more sinister.

Jeff

(2015-01-23, 12:59)orion_jb2001 Wrote: Hi,

I got rained out this afternoon, so I am just testing the H field side, inside. I do not have a shielded cable going from the controller to my LAN. Now all seems to be working but I get the check network cable connection. The appears not to be any connection at the controller end or the LAN. Is it because of the non shielded cable or is there something more sinister.

Jeff

Hi,

This has been copied over from the internal forum, station hardware firmware antenna section, 32 hours without response on a subject that if done wrong, I think, would compromise your detector. Someone within the broader followers of Blitzortung may be able to assist.

""Some very interesting posts on the various ways of shielding H field ferrites. It seems that copper foil and ribbon cable are evenly matched in popularity. If I need to shield my H field ferrite antennas, I will use ribbon cable, which will be easiest to obtain. I can see that you solder one edge of your ribbon cable and then attach that earth wire to your negative connector of the antenna connectors on the pcb, for both relevant channels/antennae.

What is not so clear is how the 2 edges of the ribbon cable relate to each other. Do you have to leave a space, similar to what is done with the copper foil or do you just wrap the unsoldered edge of the ribbon cable around your conduit and just terminate in adjacent to your soldered edge (lying beside it). I assume you don't solder the other edge to the first one or do you?? The photos I have seen, do not show how the 2 edges of the ribbon cable end up around your conduit.

regards,

Jeff (nearly ready to mount on the roof!!!)""

Hi

I was searching for quite a while on this topic but couldn't find any data. Does somebody here know how far the ground current from a lightning strike is reaching?
Assuming having two ground rods in a practicable distance and measuring the voltage (-drop) in between.

If you are not going to give me access to your internal forum site, put my posts back in general. How the dickens can I get this working if I can not see my posts and the answers people have provided. I can't see some of my posts because I can't get into the internal forum where I think they have been moved.

Jeff:

(2015-01-16, 02:18)orion_jb2001 Wrote: If you are not going to give me access to your internal forum site, put my posts back in general. How the dickens can I get this working if I can not see my posts and the answers people have provided. I can't see some of my posts because I can't get into the internal forum where I think they have been moved.

Jeff

your post is noted about posting technical questions from operators in the internal forum I was not aware of that procedure, however, my request for a login ability to the internal forum has a operator has not been actioned. I have sent an request email, as per instructions, to blitzortung@gmx.org. ( Sorry if any operators have replied to my "moved post" technical question, I do not have access to the internal forum yet )

Jeff

Whilst using an old magnifying light setup (really old, incandescent blubs.. lol), in building the PCB12 ver 3c amp, an IC was put in the wrong spot. I managed to get the IC back off and placed where it should be in IC2, but in the process, pulled up some circuit board tape. The relevant IC is IC2 dual op amp MCP6292. The relevant problem regarding the circuit tape lifting is (looking from top, antennae to left, RJ45 to the right) is the bottom right hand corner of IC2. The tape leads to Capacitor 6. Now I have ordered a spare PCB12 ver 3c from Egon as the board failed power up test. My belief was the IC did not survive the removal/replacement and the circuit board tape were issues. All other parts are going ok in construction, a new mag light system with LED lights much better!!! Now between construction of different parts, I have again revisited the ver 3c board. Now I have managed to connect a wire bridge from the bottom right hand corner (diagonally opposite the indent) to Capacitor 6. I have also touched up some of the solder joints. To my surprises, the PCB now passed initial power up, as described in the blitz system red assembly.

My questions are, if that IC2 is damaged, would the unit succeed in the initial power up check? The circuit lead that went from that bottom right hand corner IC2 and C6, if that is not working, what will such a non connection cause in the system, what isn't going to work? Looking at the circuit diagram for 12 ver 3c, I can see a connection between the IC2 and C5 & 6, but I am not sure if this connection has not been successful with the wire bridge, what issues this will cause to the amp? I am hoping that the board might be right and I will be able to at least connect and test the system but my intention it to carefully construct the replacement PCB 12 ver 3c and use it in the final completed system. I have doubts about IC2 and that wire bridge.

regards,

Jeff