Lonesome Stations

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Or, people have trouble wth the documentation and/or seldom --if ever-- visit this forum. The way to help is to contact them, if only a few at first.

Hi Mike, You Know that I am doing that!  I have helped some stations, mainly by contacting them personally by email.
Yes, the forum stats for stations show that few people ever visit or read anything posted in the forums!
Many stations have opted out of contact by email by other participants. Why I do not understand?

Hi Dries, I have to agree with you, in almost all locations, there are things that can be done to improve the situation, especially in regards to setting up a station to mitigate the worst of the problems, and many solutions have been well documented, and continue to be resolved as new problems become apparent.
However, Mike is right, in regards to the fact that some people do not read the documentation or the ample information that is available in the various forums. 
One big improvement that could still be made, is with the "fully automatic" operation of stations!
I would suggest that they start at the lowest gains, and a reasonably high theshold and then slowly and gradually "improve", until they start to "sense the noise" and begin to receive strokes, and then stop adjusting. Any further adjustments requiring manual attention. 
Rather than the present situation, where they seem to start with the Highest gains and Lowest thresholds and then reduce the gains until they "oscillate" in and out of "Interference mode" and never really quite make it, in terms of efficiency.
Optimising manually, takes time and patience, but inevitably leads to better results.
If we must have a "FULLY AUTOMATIC MODE", let's make it so that it does the minimum amount of "Damage" to the network as a whole. 

IMHO, It is better to have stations slightly under-performing in the recording of strokes, rather than have them sending thousands of superfluous signals to the servers! 
One thing is clear, if these stations can not operate properly under low levels of activity, then they are going to perform even worse, under the high level activity of the Summer storms!

Another possible option, might be, for the server to suspend or shut down these stations, and for an email to be sent to their owners, informing them that their station needs some attention!

Kindest regards,

Brian.  1856 Vilaboa.