Software for viewing analyzed STARE HDF files

Note:The most user-friendly way to view STARE data nowadays at FMI/GEO is to use the program IHMETYS. It provides a very clear graphical user interface and enables one to plot STARE, magnetometer and all-sky camera images on the same map. In addition there is the command line tool GetSTAREdata which gives you interpolated STARE electric field vectors at a set of any user-defined points and epochs. The text below describes the older stare.t program which still works, but is less user-friendly.

You need:

To install Tela
To get stare.t (Tela program)
To get MAAMERI.HDF (Map file needed by stare.t)
These files must be put somewhere along your TELAPATH. For example, make a new directory /mydir/t for them, then setenv TELAPATH :/mydir/t (if using csh/tcsh) or TELAPATH=/mydir/t; export TELAPATH (if using sh/ksh/bash).
To get some analyzed HDF files and put them in /proj/STARE/yyyy/mm directories in your own machine.

Then, you should be able to view those files by typing tela stare.t.

If you don't want to use/install Tela, the analyzed files are gzipped NCSA HDF files containing the following variables:

sttime,entime are vectors giving the start and end of each 20-second integration period, as seconds from the start of the UT day.

range is a 50-length vector giving the distance from the radar in kilometers (usually extending from 495 km to 1230 km).

snr is a three-dimensional array of dimensions 8x50x4320 (8 beams from west to east, 50 ranges, and 4320 20-second integration periods in 24 hours). This is the signal-to-noise ratio in dB. It has been quantized to 0.1 dB accuracy. vel is the Doppler velocity in m/s, quantized to 1 m/s. The sign is positive towards the radar, except for the Norwegian radar for which it is currently negative. (The stare.t program knows about this difference.)

It is possible for us to translate the HDF files into CDF files if needed.

Updated 16 Dec, 1999. Missing links fixed 19 Feb 2009.