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Archival of Poker Flat MST radar data

Abstract

The Poker Flat MST (mesosphere stratosphere troposphere) radar has operated from early 1979 to 1985. The data recorded during that time resides on some 1100 magnetic tapes. A second set containing only the derived parameters of velocity, width and signal to noise of the primary echo at each height, plus the noise spectra, occupies another 250 tapes. While processing to generate the compressed data set does correct some known errors, no attempt has been made to identify or remove spurious echoes. Because the Poker Flat data set is such a unique and valuable resource, a proposal is made to archive the data in forms more useful for analysis. The archived data set would contain only the parameters for significant echoes with contamination from airplanes, unwanted ionospheric returns, frequently aliased Doppler signals and other sources removed. The archived set should be as good or better than the example shown and may occupy only 25 to 50 tapes

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