Form RAOBsites Documentation


MJ Mahoney
Last Revision: June 19, 2008

frmRAOBsites.png

Figure 1. The RAOBsites form.

A list of radiosonde launch sites is saved in the C:\MTP\RAOB\BIN\MTP_UA.BIN file. As discussed elsewhere, it has evolved from using data initially from a list of WMO surface and upperair sites, to a list of GEMPAK sites, and now finally to a list from the NOAA ESRL Gobal Systems Division (formerly FSL) called intl2000.wmo. It is read from or written to using the RAOBsites form.

The RAOBsites form can be used to do several things:

1) Find information on a particular radiosonde launch site

The Find frame is used to do just that. Data can be read by specifying the ICAO name, the WMO number or the Record number in the MTP_UA.BIN file; to do this select the appropriate option. In Figure 1 the ICAO name for Vandenburg Air Force Base (VBG) was entered into the ICAO text box and the Go button depressed. This caused the WMO, Record, Location, State, Country, Region, Latitude, Longitude, and Geopotential Height text boxes to be loaded with the relevant information from the MTP_UA.BIN file. (Currently the Region text box shows the number 9 since the WMO region information is not available in the intl2000.wmo file. See below on how the MTP_UA.BIN file is generated. The data structure used by this file is shown below.)

Depressing the N+1, N-1, Last and First buttons read the next, previous, last and first records respectively.

2) Update the MTP_UA.BIN file

The procedure now for updating the MTP_UA.BIN file is as follows:

a) Go to the NOAA ESRL GSD Station History documentation and download the intl2000.wmo text file to the C:/MTP/RAOB/BIN/ folder (or just right click on the last link and select the Save Link As menu option). The extension .wmo simply means that the file is ordered in sequence of increasing WMO station numbers. (There is another file that is ordered in sequence of increasing WBAN numbers, but these only apply in North America and so are less general.) The intl2000.wmo has about 1900 entries, but it includes the history for each North American station (that is, the period of time the station was active at a particular location). When the MTP_UA.BIN file is generated, only active stations are included; there are 900-1000 active stations.

b) Run the CRLF.exe program to add a carriage return to each line of the intl2000.wmo file.

c) Select the Export tab in the RAOBman.exe program, and then depress the Show RAOB Details button near the bottom of the form bring up the RAOBsites form shown in Figure 1.

d) Finally, depress the Gen BIN button on the buttom left of the RAOBsites form to create a new version of the C:\MTP\RAOB\BIN\MTP_UA.BIN file. This is the only RAOB file now read by MTP data analysis programs that need radiosonde location information.

3) Write a MTP_UA.TXT file

In addition to the Gen BIN button on the RAOBsites form, there are two others: the BIN to TXT and the TXT to BIN buttons. The BIN to TXT button reads the MTP_UA.BIN file and writes it out as an ascii text file named MTP_UA.TXT. This can be useful as a reference list. It can also be editted in a text editor to add a new site or remove an old site. If this is done, the TXT to BIN button can be used to write a new version of the MTP_UA.BIN file. Before doing this, always check to see if the intl2000.wmo has not already been updated. If it hasn't, notify NOAA ESRL GSD that they are not current.

Data Structure for Radiosonde Station Location

  Type GPrecord
    GPcards As Long               ' CARDS number = WMO*10
    GPicao As String * 8          ' Alpha name
    GPlatitude As Single          ' Latitude
    GPlongitude As Single         ' Longitude
    GPaltitude As Integer         ' Geopotential Height (meters MSL)
    GPregion As Integer           ' WMO region
    GPcountry As String * 2       ' FIPS PUB 10-4 Country Code
    GPstate As String * 2         ' State
    GPstation As String * 32      ' Station name
    GPspare As Integer            ' Spare
  End Type