MAPR - Specs

Contact Person: Stephen Cohn or William Brown
NCAR / ATD
PO Box 3000
Boulder CO 80307 - 3000
Tel: 303 497 8826 or 303 497 8774, Fax: 303 497 8770
cohn at ucar.edu or wbrown at ucar.edu
URL http://www.atd.ucar.edu/rtf/facilities/mapr/
Frequency 915 MHz (33 cm)
Transmitter 3.5kW peak, 400W average
Receivers 4 PIRAQ II data cards
Range Typically to 4 km in warm, humid clear-air conditions
2 km in cold, dry clear-air conditions
Sees right through depth of precip (say up to 10 km)
Resolution 50, 100, 200 meters
FDI RIM available for 10m scale resolution
Platform Ground based - 20' container hauled by truck
Can be operated at sea with stabilized platform
Measurement Rapid (1 minute) wind measurements using spaced antenna techniques,
Reflectivity, Doppler Velocity, Turbulence Intensity,
RASS temperature profiling
Data Recording Raw data: netCDF on DVD or RAID disk (5-20 GB/day)
Wind products and images near real-time on Web
Operational Limitations: Low clutter environment preferred
Applications: High time resolution measurements of wind in the boundary layer
Turbulence and Precipitation studies
Particularly suited for rapidly evolving events, e.g., fronts & squalls
Flux measurements under development