Data Access

[John.Sacrey]

The project might be a hobby for a lot of participants and contributors, but it is much more than just a hobby when combining all the work of the community. ;-)

What do you mean with real world applications?

You say it is "much more than just a hobby", but to what end then?  I'm just not getting what the purpose of this project is?  

By real world applications I mean something other than just making pretty pictures.  For example, an app on a cell phone to warn of impending storms.  Open Street Maps started small, but their maps can now be used in commercial GPS receivers which makes those devices more open.  Many apps are available to use the OSM data. 

I'm not trying to knock what you are doing.  I think it is great.  But I don't follow what direction the project is going and it seems to have some very serious limitations in how the collected data can be used. 

BTW, I am an engineer who has designed and put into production small designs like this.  If anyone would like some help with the effort to get the Blue units out the door, I can do that.  I believe you guys are doing all this in Germany.  Any interest in making unit in the US?

Hi,

The data is being used for real world applications. There is an app called Blitzortung Live for iOS. I believe there is an Android version, too. Both apps as free for anyone to use. There are settings in the app you can use to set an alarm, banner, etc. to go off when lightning gets within a certain distance set by the user. It worked just fine for me early this morning.

I will quote what one of the Moderators wrote earlier in the year regarding this very subject.

From Cutty:

Note also the privacy policies which reflect general worldwide laws regarding participant's information and some related data.
http://www.blitzortung.org/Webpages/index.php?page=7

The authors of the provided data are "all" participants of the network.
It is not the intention of the project to 
publish raw data, 
to provide access to raw data, 
or to market raw data to others. 
This removes a main motivation to join the project and leads to a disintegration of the network. 
A commercial use of data from Blitzortung.org is prohibited.

The participants can use these data for 
presenting their own derived maps 
or statistical evaluations on their own web sites. 
Participants can collect the data to create a separate private archive 
and
provide access by other users to maps and statistical information created from their own archive.

In addition, to my knowledge there isn't ANY other "near real time" lightning data you can watch that is free for anyone to look at without spending lots of money for a subscription to USLDN, etc.

Respectfully,

John Sacrey
Benton, AR