Two Things

[Skyking69]

All,


Thanks for looking at this. When I wrote to them a forum moderator suggested that I repost a link to this area. It was regarding a project I am engaged with and which I am really, really, having a hard time getting traction on. But, first I wanted to pass along a comment. Could someone please make a short post and get it stickied that says just what OpenCPN is? There is a lot of action in this area, but other than the fact that I was referred here I am kind of lost as to what it refers to. Anyway, on to my help request.


I made a post at Radar - Nontraditional Application Question...Can ANYONE Help?. And while it quickly garnered several hundred reads, and a number of comments/suggestions, I continue to run into brick walls.


Pointed to one at that post, I have written to a commercial off the shelf (COTS) vendor for a product that could - could - solve our needs, but they use a proprietary data output and so I am not at all optimistic that their offering will address our needs. I was super excited to see referral to "OpenBR24 https://sourceforge.net/projects/openbr24/ that will display a Navico (Lowrance,Simrad and B&G) radar on windows that I am using.", but when I went there it is apparently a dead project. Not updated since 2015 and with no contact info and dead links I am stalled there. I wrote to SourceForge, but they are some kind of media company that owns SourceForge, so I am again not very optimistic.


A careful read of my initial post should pretty succinctly spell out what we are trying to do, but for those that want the Cliff's Notes version:

• I am an officer in the Red River Valley Amateur Radio Club (RRVARC) in Northeast Texas USA.
• We are geographically located in a "hole" in weather radar coverage in the United States.
• Weather radar is so distant that curvature of the Earth means weather is only depicted 18,000' above the center of our area of operations.
• Our group provides weather observer reports and other data to local emergency preparedness personnel at the shared city/county "Emergency Operations Center" (EOC) and to the National Weather Service in Fort Worth Texas via "ham" radio.
• We have great need to fill in the weather radar gap so that personnel at the EOC can have improved situational awareness of weather and personnel out in the field. We also need those in the field to be able to see where weather is relative to their position. Rain wrapped tornadoes are not visible without radar.
• We are exploring use of a marine radar to provide data where it is not otherwise available for use on our emergency services page (not yet published) on the Club website (www.wb5rdd.org).
• We insist on 100% control over the weather radar data stream and its use.

I have spent a lot of time searching the Internet, writing to hardware manufacturers, etc., and so far nothing. I keep posting the link to it because it is so important, our Club website has a licensed reprint of a Washington Post article Radar gaps threaten millions as severe weather season ramps up in U.S. that really explains the issue. Millions of lives are imperiled due to the problem. At this point we cannot solve it for ourselves, much less for anyone else, but the problem cries out for solution. And I firmly believe the first savvy radar manufacturer that comes up with a real COTS system, one that turns loose of the proprietary data limitations, and can be sold turnkey into these communities; they stand to do quite well.


Can anyone here help us to even get started?


Much thanks,


Phillip Beall (W5EBC)

[stevead]

I'll take a quick stab at this, it seems like a good public service thing to do.

OpenCPN is an open source Chart Plotting and Navigation program that runs on Windows, Mac & Linux. More information can be found at this link. Think of it as a SatNav for boats.

To address your specific questions. Additional functionality is provided by plugins, one of which supports modern doppler radars. They overlay the radar image over the chart. The radar plugin supports Navico (Simrad, B&G, Lowrance), some Garmin and Raymarine systems. More detail can be found here

For your specific requirements there will be a few important aspects.
Will marine radar detect weather on land.
You will need a chart, in your case something like a Google map image, saved as a KAP or MBTile file would suffice.
OpenCPN requires GPS and for radar, a compass heading, to orient the chart and the radar overlay although in your case these can be synthesized without a real GPS or compass.
Finally you will need to devise a method to "capture" the OpenCPN screen at a timed interval, convert to an image (BMP, GIF, PNG etc.) and publish via a web server.
Conceptually, none of this is very difficult provided the marine radar can discriminate weather on land.
Good luck.

[hpeer]

Good reply.

I suspect the shape of the radar signal will be important here. How “high” is the radar pulse.

When I fooled with aircraft radar, far to long ago, the antenna had 2 modes.
Surface search - which produced a “fan” shaped pulse.
Weather - which had a “pencil” beam and looked out not down.
Boat radars are interested in looking slightly down as well as out, we want to see other boats and weather.

The various radar manufacturers have a variety of antennas. Inexpensive domes antennas and also “open array” types where you can see the rotating radiator. It may be useful to do a survey of the commercially available units to se id there are any more well adapted to your usage. The relevant specs are usually published.

Is there a radiator that will fit your purpose matched to one of the above noted units?

Also note that B&G, Lowrence, and Simrad are really ONE company. Kinda like Buick, Pontiac, Chevrolet are all GM.

[Pandor]

I’m fairly certain that the OP isn’t the first one who has thought of using marine radar as a land-based weather solution. But the FCC isn’t going to allow that. See the link for a description of some of the issues. But in general, you need a license for transmitting marine radar and FCC will insist it be used in its intended environment.

https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachme...-99-1029A1.pdf

[Skyking69]

Pandor,


I thought I had adequately addressed that, but I will hit it again.



We completely understand that licensing is a component to this. In the context of a lot of the discussions on this site radars are licensed to ships as I understand it. But, people with the right amateur radio license are also able to operate in at least some radar frequencies. What frequencies they can operate at and its compatibility with our possible radar solution; that will be researched. Control point issues will have to be determined, control operators will have to be determined, there may be some other licensing issues; we will fully explore all legal ramifications prior to acquiring anything. I have access to people with Amateur Extra licensing as well as commercial licenses as well as a great deal of experience with radar. Including "the radar guy" on the ship that located a cruise liner that hit an iceberg and sank in the North Atlantic 100 years ago. There are plenty of licensed personnel to help us to figure out the legalities, we can even stipulate that the discussion here is entirely theoretical and then there are no legality issues. So, please bear with me and let's set the legalities discussion aside for now.



One thing at a time. Right now we simply cannot find a hardware solution other than buying a $1MM Doppler unit and even that would probably have a proprietary data output.



My goals are:

1. Let's figure out if the hardware exists with a suitable data output to our needs; and then,
   .
2. If we find that, we can start exploring the legalities; and then,
   .
3. If we find hardware that exists and it outputs data suitable to our needs, then let's see what the rough turnkey cost would be. We have some sponsors that want to help, but you have to be able to provide factual information to get into those conversations.

I want to break this down into small pieces. Right now it all comes down to the hardware and the non-proprietary output.



OK, back to regular programming.


Thanks,


Phillip

[Skyking69]

stevead,


I very much appreciate the "public service" comment. Yes, that is what we do, we provide a public service, lots of them, so that is an entirely appropriate remark. You gave me several things to go and explore and I will.


Much thanks,


Phillip