Hi Steve and Barry,


On 07/27/2012 05:41 AM, Stephen Hammond wrote:
>
> ..... and you will see that the PSN format developed with inputs from 
> Ted Blank, Larry, John Lahr, Ed Cranswick and others is recognized, 
> compatible and supported.
>

I simply can not agree. The PSN format is recognized but it not 
compatible with much other than WinQuake, and it is only supported and 
maintained by Larry. In any case it is not a protocol for the exchange 
of data in real time. It is and event format.

For the exchange of data even between ourselves we need to use other 
software and I am suggesting earthworm since their an easy connection 
between WinSDR and earthworm. Also earthworm is public domain software 
and anyone of use can mess around with the code and do any number of things.

For starters in forming our own "PSN network" I will get us a FDSN 
network ID and an earthworm ID. I will also help anyone form proper 
channel names so that we can exchange data. I will also help anyone who 
want to set up a simple earthworm system to exchange data. With Karl's 
work we can get the data back into WinSDR for alarming, filtering and 
all of the other great things that it does and then use WinQuake. BTW, 
earthworm will write event data in PSN format, that program is supported 
and maintained by Larry.

The USGS, CVO and VDAP routinely use Larry's digitizers to get data into 
Earthworm and then transport the data and extract event data in more 
standard and useful formats for post processing.
>
> I would suggest that if we want to move forward we form working groups 
> to address some of the issue:
>
> 1.Calibration.
>
Calibration is hard work, but that is no reason to shy away from it, we 
can do it.

> 2.Consistent amplifier filtering and gain settings.
>
Know would be enough.
>
> 3.A complete world-wide listing of stations including sensor type, 
> location, amp gain, operators info, data exchange format, install 
> dates, related website address, data website storage address and any 
> special information.
>
> 4.Site self evaluations standards. An example would be the PSN San 
> Jose site located in Aptos, CA. ATE, ATN and ATZ on a scale of 
> 1-5(high) I would rate a 3. They are HS-10 geophones with a gain of 
> 2,100, 50 sample/sec, timing is via GPS using Larry’s data collection 
> system. The exact location is 36.58.41.700N / 121.53.55.824W at an alt 
> of +39.53m.
>
Points 2,3 and 4 sound like metadata and it is what Branden was talking 
about. It is also hard work.

I also would like this thread to stay alive and request that we not go 
off-list with these topics. We have huge talent on the list. I ask all 
of the list member to put in their 2 cents.

Saludos,


Angel

> *From:*psnlist-request@.............. 
> [mailto:psnlist-request@............... *On Behalf Of *Branden Christensen
> *Sent:* Thursday, July 26, 2012 9:04 PM
> *To:* psnlist@..............
> *Subject:* Re: Standards use can follow
>
> Barry:
>
> Angel's partner here. I generally do not weigh in on these discussions 
> but you are hitting on an area of seismology I am passionate about: 
> metadata.
>
> Fortunately, much of what you so keenly propose already exists. Take 
> the two biggest registries for example: IRIS amd GFZ. In recent times 
> a few industry standards have emerged:
>
> Data Exchange Protocol: SeedLink
> Waveform Protocol: MiniSeed
> Metadata protocol: Dataless Seed
>
> Together the miniseed and dataless create a complete Seed volume. 
> MiniSeed files contain waveform data and a header to identify the 
> Station Network Channel Location or SCNL, etc. The dataless is really 
> amazing. It contains the station SCNL, lat lon alt depth, description, 
> serial numbers, sensor and digitizer flavor, acquisition start and end 
> dates/ times and the full response information: poles, zeros and gain- 
> or exactly the required information to construct the systems transfer 
> function and remove the instrument response. Most real time software 
> packages such as Earthworm, Earlybird and SeisComP and post processing 
> systems such as Seisan automatically use this dataless information to 
> remove the instrument response. This permits the software to produce 
> magnitudes and event locations or stuff sensative to the real 
> amplitudes and phase of the input signal.
>
> All of this seed information is passed around via SeedLink Servers in 
> real time.
>
> If you are thinking of how the amateur community might contribute, 
> then Angel made a good point about the need for detecting local 
> seismicity below 4. But also consider the civil defense applications 
> of seismology. Magnitude and locations are really an academic pursuit- 
> pretty much meaningless to the general public who want to know 1) did 
> it shake and, if so, 2) how much. So lots and lots of amateur neural 
> networks of accelerometers could make a difference. Imagine piping all 
> of that data into a real time system that created shake maps with 
> color intensities displaying how hard the ground shook and where. 
> These maps benefit from lots and lots of nodes, be they amateur or 
> professional.
>
> Great thread, keep it coming.
>
> Best,
>
> Branden Christensen
>
> On Jul 26, 2012 8:11 PM, "Barry Lotz"  > wrote:
>
> Hi Angel
> Thank you. The links you listed shed light on the USGS station name I 
> have been monitoring. Should the network have some significance in the 
> name? Does "WE" refer to something? Maybe the network registry could 
> eventually contain the station's sensor specifics. Maybe a some of 
> these station properties could be listed which would show organization 
> , professionalism, & completeness. Maybe some items might be:
> - type of sensor ( feedback or not? , homemade? , mfg new?, mfg 
> restored or modified?)
>
> - calibrated or not
> - method of timing
> - if calibrated, is there a frequency response plot available.
> - some kind of station noise quality. Sensor noise is a subject in 
> it's self, but maybe a combined noise plot or related value could be 
> determined which would the combined site/sensor noise, which is 
> ultimately what affects the sensors output. Maybe something comparing 
> the station sensor to the NLNM or NHNM. It probably should be similar 
> to how the professional stations are evaluated.
> - availability of digital data?
> - ?
> Just some thoughts to keep the thread live.
>
> Regards
> Barry
> _www.seismicvault.com _
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> *From:*"sismos@.............. " 
> >
> *To:* psnlist@.............. 
> *Sent:* Wed, July 25, 2012 6:03:49 AM
> *Subject:* Standards use can follow
>
> HI Barry,
>
> I might have to take this in parts. I think that there are some very 
> easy steps we can take that cost nothing. We can follow the channel 
> naming convention.
>
> All of the modern softwares and mainly earthworm and seiscomp refer to 
> channels as SCNL
>
> Station
> Channel
> Network
> Location
>
> STATION name can be up to 5 characters, letters and numbers, no 
> special characters and can not start with a number. My main station 
> for the last 12 years is BRU2. If the station name are to be shared 
> the need to be unique. There is an agency that keeps a big station 
> book. We could probably come up with a scheme that was unique to us, 
> for example all or our station names would end in 99 so maybe a new 
> site for me would be ALR99.
>
> CHANNEL name is a bit harder but but more or less defined here.
>
> http://www.iris.washington.edu/manuals/SEED_appA.htm
>
> NETWORK code we would have to apply for one, if we haven't, I could do 
> it, it would be easy, They are assigned by the FDSN, Federation of 
> Digital Seismic Network. We might ask for one, maybe "WE", as far as I 
> can tell numbers are allow in this field, so maybe we could get a pair 
> of numbers.
>
> http://www.fdsn.org/station_book/
>
> LOCATION is just a two character field, numbers and letter. Normally 
> 00 for the main station. The usefulness is that if we have many 
> instruments co-located we can tell them apart. Dave has many vertical 
> at the same place so they would all have the same station name, the 
> same channel name and the same network code and we could tell them 
> apart by the location code. So...
>
> My main station has SCNLs as follow
>
> BRU2 HHZ PA 00
> BRU2 HHN PA 00
> BRU2 HHE PA 00
>
> Dave's might be
>
> DFN99 HHZ WE 00
> DFN99 HHZ WE 10
> DFN99 HHZ WE 20
>
> This would be the SCNL for three co-located vertical high gain 
> broadbands from the station DFN99 sampled at more than 80 samples per 
> second in the network WE.
>
> Other easy things we can do is to have our station coordinates
> Then the time thing, GPS is best but WWV if fine and cheap and there 
> is NTP network time which I also think is ok as long as we can 
> regulate the computer time to less than 100 milliseconds for regional 
> locations. Small tight networks need better time.
>
> Many latin american country networks have nothing more, They only pick 
> P and S report coda magnitudes. You do not need to calibrate your 
> instruments to do that. To calculate other magnitudes we would need to 
> calibrate our instruments.
>
> Most of use have Larry's digitizer which easily integrates into 
> earthworm and once we had our data in earthworm sharing our data in 
> real time would be easy. We would need an earthworm ID but that would 
> be easy and we could all share the same ID.
>
> More latter, questions and comments welcome. Who wants to be our 
> registrar??
>
> Saludos,
>
> Angel
>
>
>
>
> On 07/17/2012 02:19 AM, Barry Lotz wrote:
> > Angel & Dave
> > I agree. How do we move forward?
> > My 2 cents: I work for a structural testing and inspection lab. Our 
> lab and inspectors comply with certain standards so that our 
> results/inspections are credible ( eg NIST, ASTM, AWS, ICC). Maybe it 
> would be possible to have an accepted protocol for our stations with 
> sensor(s). I would like to comment on the items you mentioned.
> > >"We have noisy instruments"
> > It seems possible to determine the instrument noise by maybe 
> "nesting"? Site noise could be evaluated over "X" time during 
> day,night or both. Could it mirror the evaluation of professional 
> systems? It seems a threshold could be determined for credibility 
> station/sensor noise limits. Do we use the NLNM graph with an envelope 
> of limits?
> > >"We do not calibrate"
> > Could a accepted standardized procedure be described for horizontal 
> and vertical sensors, that all could use? I am familiar with methods 
> that Dave and Brett use for our FBV's.
> > >"We do not have accurate time"
> > Would , as an example, larry's SDR program and ADC unit with GPS 
> time be sufficient? What would be an accepted variational allowance?
> > >"We do not use a standard format for data exchange"
> > Could a documented conversion program(s) be used to convert from say 
> psn to an "standard" format? Maybe it already exists.
> > > "We do not use standard naming conventions"
> > Should we have a described procedure for this?
> > I think Dr Weilandt has programs which could address some of the 
> noise and calibration issues above. I haven't completely read it but 
> is the NMSOP what professionals use? Could we have something similar 
> with more nuts and bolts procedures and info?
> > General agreement maybe the biggest hurdle, but I agree we should 
> make an effort to have more credible stations and sensors if we 
> desire. Maybe we just needs some agreed upon documented standards to 
> try to achieve.
> >
> > Regards
> > Barry
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> > *From:* "sismos@.............. " 
> >
> > *To:* psnlist@.............. 
> > *Sent:* Sat, July 14, 2012 12:48:51 PM
> > *Subject:* Re: diamagnetic levitation seismometer possibility
> >
> > On 07/14/2012 12:38 AM, Thomas Dick wrote:
> > > On 7/13/2012 5:55 PM, Dave Nelson wrote:
> > >> The number of possible seismic instrument configurations which 
> will provide some response to seismic motions is vast. The question is 
> the practicality/utility of a given configuration.
> > >> The key figure of merit for any instrument configuration is the 
> instrument self noise and response as a function of frequency. This 
> directly determines the minimum seismic motion the instrument is 
> capable of detecting and then providing useful data for analysis.
> > >> If one is willing to wait for that rare magnitude 7 or 8 event 
> the simplest / noisiest instrument may do the job in some contexts, 
> such as classroom demonstrations .
> > >> The amateur astronomer community has evolved to the point where 
> it provides useful ( if not essential) information to the astronomy 
> scientific community. I believe the amateur seismology community could 
> do a similar service but not with inadequate instrumentation.
> > >> The goal should be to develop amateur instruments with 
> characteristics near the performance of professional instruments and 
> then operating them in reasonably low noise sites. (An instrument in a 
> residential basement will work reassembly well if carefully done.)
> > >> Larry Cochrane has already provided us with excellent equipment 
> to handle the sensor data and connect it to a network. Some work needs 
> to be done in this area but we have a good start.
> > >> _*My challenge is to include instrument self noise and generator 
> constant, both as a function of frequency, as a FIRST PRIORITY when 
> evaluating the utility of an instrument concept. *_
> > >> Just another gadget that will respond if you shake it is not 
> where we want to spend our efforts and resources.
> > >> I do NOT mean to imply there are not some truly innovative and 
> possibly revolutionary ideas out there but we should look at each of 
> them carefully to determine early whether they justify significant 
> effort or belong in the "that was interesting" stack.
> > >> Just where determination is made is a personal choice but it 
> should be based on some form of analysis and/or test.
> > >> Comments Please.
> > >> Dave Nelson
> > >> Rolling Hills Estates, California
> > > My impression is that most academia and professional seismologists 
> hold the amateur in very low esteem.
> >
> > Yes, they do hold us in low esteem and this is our own fault.
> >
> > We have noisy instruments
> > We do not calibrate
> > We do not have accurate time
> > We do not use a standard format for data exchange
> > We do not use standard naming conventions
> >
> > The academic and professional seismologists can already locate and 
> characterize (within a few minutes) all events over about 4.2 Mb, They 
> don't need us for that. Where we could excel and make a meaningful 
> contribution is in the seismicity of our own backyards, the small 
> events less than one degree from our instruments. Recording those is a 
> bit harder than picking up the squiggles from a 6.5 Mb 10 degrees away.
> >
> > These are just a few things we do and do not do and until we do we 
> will just be amateurs.
> >
> > Just my two cents
> >
> > Angel
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > __________________________________________________________
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