For the "station measure" the KISS Principle needs to be applied (Keep It Simple Stupid). The current blitzortung station list Effectivity isn't very fair, take these numbers for my and the next closest three stations pulled from the station list earlier:
Cutty's
Sigs Parti Ef L Effc Efct
4306 1814 16% 0.42 0.73
1229 619 1% 0.50 1.01
1016 330 0% 0.32 0.48
494 341 0% 0.69 2.23
4216 1788 16% 0.42 0.74
1229 633 1% 0.52 1.06
1001 337 0% 0.34 0.51
502 360 0% 0.72 2.54
As these numbers come from the station list they cover the previous 60 mins and up to 5000 km. The vast majority of those strikes are happening over Itally, 1000 miles (1600 km) away. There does need to be a time period over which the signals and particpated strikes are counted. An hour seems about right for a quick "how is my station doing" and if updated every minute ought to reflect any settings changes fairly rapidly and totaly after an hour, which isn't too long to wait. I think there should also be a longer period, 24 or 48 hours perhaps, that would give an indication of how the station is doing over the longer term. Storms would generally come and go over that time scale.
If we do adopt Cutty's suggestion there does need to be at least a divide by zero trap and/or some cap on the value of "Effectivity". A cap of 10 seems reasonable, to get a Effectivity of 10, 91% of the signals sent would have to be used. Also this value is exponential but I think this helps us as the sensitivity of the value increases with the percentage of signals used. That is 50% of signals used gives a value of 1, 60% 1.5, 70% 2.33, 80% 4, 90% 9. A target of getting over 66% (ie a value greater than 2) of signals used ought to be achievable by most stations. The 2.23 and 2.54 above represent 69% and 72% used.
Distance, geographic clusters, etc aren't really relevant to a stations "performance measure". We want that measure to be a useful aid in adjusting a stations settings (mainly gain and threshold) to achieve the goal of maximum participation with minimum signals sent. The station operator decides on the range of their station following the recomended guidelines of isolated - longer range - higher gain, lots of neighbours - shorter range - lower gain. The threshold is then adjusted to a level where local interference only rarely triggers the sending of a signal. This may mean that an isolated station with a noisy local enviroment doesn't have the range that the guidelines suggest it ought to have to give maximum benefit the network. That is solved by reducing the local noise, if possible, if not "it is, what it is".
Cutty's
Sigs Parti Ef L Effc Efct
4306 1814 16% 0.42 0.73
1229 619 1% 0.50 1.01
1016 330 0% 0.32 0.48
494 341 0% 0.69 2.23
4216 1788 16% 0.42 0.74
1229 633 1% 0.52 1.06
1001 337 0% 0.34 0.51
502 360 0% 0.72 2.54
As these numbers come from the station list they cover the previous 60 mins and up to 5000 km. The vast majority of those strikes are happening over Itally, 1000 miles (1600 km) away. There does need to be a time period over which the signals and particpated strikes are counted. An hour seems about right for a quick "how is my station doing" and if updated every minute ought to reflect any settings changes fairly rapidly and totaly after an hour, which isn't too long to wait. I think there should also be a longer period, 24 or 48 hours perhaps, that would give an indication of how the station is doing over the longer term. Storms would generally come and go over that time scale.
If we do adopt Cutty's suggestion there does need to be at least a divide by zero trap and/or some cap on the value of "Effectivity". A cap of 10 seems reasonable, to get a Effectivity of 10, 91% of the signals sent would have to be used. Also this value is exponential but I think this helps us as the sensitivity of the value increases with the percentage of signals used. That is 50% of signals used gives a value of 1, 60% 1.5, 70% 2.33, 80% 4, 90% 9. A target of getting over 66% (ie a value greater than 2) of signals used ought to be achievable by most stations. The 2.23 and 2.54 above represent 69% and 72% used.
Distance, geographic clusters, etc aren't really relevant to a stations "performance measure". We want that measure to be a useful aid in adjusting a stations settings (mainly gain and threshold) to achieve the goal of maximum participation with minimum signals sent. The station operator decides on the range of their station following the recomended guidelines of isolated - longer range - higher gain, lots of neighbours - shorter range - lower gain. The threshold is then adjusted to a level where local interference only rarely triggers the sending of a signal. This may mean that an isolated station with a noisy local enviroment doesn't have the range that the guidelines suggest it ought to have to give maximum benefit the network. That is solved by reducing the local noise, if possible, if not "it is, what it is".