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Never resting on
their laurels, CODAR engineering team
members continually strive
for improved system durability.
Starting late this year the SeaSonde
receive antenna will be replaced with
an even more rugged version.
The new dome-shaped antenna design
features a smooth upper profile
absent of any screws reducing
likelihood of any water intrusion.
Another
advancement is the absence of external horizontal
whip ground plane elements, with
ground plane to be set inside the
mast for protection.
 This new design is completely
backwards compatible with
existing SeaSonde electronics, and
will be included with all new
SeaSonde remote unit or antenna
replacement orders beginning late
2008.
Special Offer: Do you have an older
receive antenna in your closet? For a
limited time promotional trade-in
discounts on older model receive antennae
will be available!
Consult company for additional
technical and pricing details.
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INSIDE THIS ISSUE
NEW
SEASONDE® ANTENNA
Delivery inside 2008
New receive antenna
design offers enhanced field
robustness.
LET THE GAMES BEGIN!
SeaSondes deployed in Qingdao, China
China’s State Oceanic Administration using
SeaSonde data to support summer Olympics
sailing events.
WORLD’S
LARGEST CURRENT MAPPING
NETWORK
1200+ contiguous miles of coastline
monitored Americas western coastal
currents mapped by SeaSondes from
Rosarito, Mexico up to Washington State.
INTRODUCING THE
RIVERSONDE® & ITS
CHINA DEBUT
CODAR’s New river monitoring product
and its first overseas deployment
In April 2008 CODAR & Chinese hydrologists
conduct the first RiverSonde deployment
outside
of U.S.
CODAR INSIDER:
Spotlight on Ligia Pacheco, Production
Manager Meet the person putting the stamp
of approval on every SeaSonde.
SOFTWARE NEWS
Are you up to date? SeaSonde 10 Release
5
Update 4 is now available.
TECH TIPS
Range Color Maps How
to use these for detecting changes in sea
echo.
UPCOMING EVENTS
RECOMMENDED READS |
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World's
Largest Coastal Current Mapping
Network Realized
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| Click
image to enlarge |
A vision
shared by many U.S. West Coast oceanographers
for over 10 years
was made a reality this summer with realtime
mapping of surface currents along more
than 1,200 contiguous miles of coastline
stretching from Rosarito,
Mexico past the southern border of Washington state. Technicians from the California
Coastal Ocean Current
Monitoring Program (COCMP) installed the final systems to link the SeaSonde® network
in Oregon, operated by Oregon
State University, and the COCMP-managed SeaSonde systems in Northern California.
Almost 60 SeaSondes are
contributing real-time data with coverage reaching nearly 200 km offshore and
higher resolution networks monitoring
around urban areas. Some of these units have been operating in small pockets
around the Santa Barbara Channel, Monterey
Bay and off Newport, Oregon, since the early 1990's.
The collection of smaller networks were linked and
expanded using 40 new SeaSondes purchased and
deployed under the California Clean Water, Clean Air,
Safe Neighborhood Parks, and Coastal Protection Act
of 2002. This network will be used for monitoring,
studying and protecting the Pacific coastline of the U.S.
and Mexico and is already a model for future large scale
networks worldwide.
For near real-time National HFRadar Network
(HFRNet) maps and information, visit:
http://cordc.ucsd.edu/projects/mapping/
| Image courtesy of Lisa Hazard,
Scripps Institute
of Oceanography |
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Let
The Games Begin!
SeaSonde® Mapping Currents at
Olympic Sailing Race Area in Qingdao
For
those asking, “what
could top the colorful and
dynamic Beijing 2008
Olympics opening ceremony?”,
we have the answer: SeaSonde derived
current maps of the
sailing race area in Qingdao!
At the stroke of midnight 8
August (Beijing Standard Time)
the North China Sea Marine
Forecasting Center of State
Oceanic Administration (SOA)
began posting SeaSondeproduced
hourly surface current
maps on their Olympic Games
Environmental Observation and
Forecasts web site. Data will be
provided to the public
throughout the Olympic and
Paralympic sailing event periods,
taking place in August and
September, respectively. The
SOA is also using SeaSonde data
along with other environmental
data sets as input to Princeton
Ocean Model creating marine
environmental forecasts of
the region.
The SOA North Sea HF network
consists of two SeaSonde radar
units spaced approximately 20
km apart. The SeaSonde unit on
isolated Dagong Island requires
only 300 watts power that is
generated by wind turbine
feeding into a battery array. Data
from both radar units are
transmitted hourly back to SOA
North Branch headquarters
office via wireless microwave
radio relay.
CODAR company President and
Co-founder Don Barrick had this
comment, “Since my days at
NOAA during the 1970’s there
has been discussion of using
HF radar data in support of
sailing race events. I have
waited too many years, and it
may be half a world away, but
it is now being done, and
quite well! I applaud the
China State Oceanic
Administration for breaking
new ground in the
application of HF radar data
from our SeaSonde systems.
Thank you for pushing the
envelope forward.”
Typically winds play a major
role in race strategy;
nonetheless, knowledge of
the currents may provide an
edge needed to win.
However, Qingdao is
notorious for occasional
periods of extreme calm
during summer season, and
under such conditions
knowledge of the ocean
current structures may take
on greater importance.
Shown here is a snapshot of the
SOA’s HF radar web page, where
near real-time maps are posted
hourly. The current maps, on a
500m resolution grid, reveal a
very strong tidal signature in the
Qingdao region. Particularly
strong jets reaching current
velocities in excess of two knots
are seen occurring inside the race
circles (these are very near to
shore) during portions of the
tidal cycle. Some very interesting
current patterns have been revealed. |
click
image to enlarge |
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Snapshot of
the SOA web page:
http://www.nmfc.gov.cn/db1/index.aspx |
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click
images to enlarge
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Introducing
the RiverSonde®
Expanding
the radar product line, CODAR
Ocean Sensors is now offering the
RiverSonde®, an affordable,
non-contact monitoring system used to measure
water flow
in
rivers, streams and channels. It measures
and
records mean surface velocities and from
these
can generate velocity profiles. These data
can be
used in conjunction with additional relevant
data
to calculate total water volume flow (discharge).
RiverSonde is used to study river flow properties
and effects, and used by anyone interested
in
these properties, including geologists, water
resource scientists, agricultural managers
for
irrigation, flood control/emergency response,
and
wildlife managers. It is also ideal for monitoring
river movement during flood events when in-situ
measurements are either unavailable or extremely
dangerous to obtain using traditional methods.
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Profile representing a cut directly
across swath of vectors extending out
from the radar.
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One of the outputs from the RiverSonde
is a onedimensional map of surface
current radial velocities. An example
of raw data from the San Joaquin
River at Vernalis in California is
shown here; approximately 2800 radial
current vectors are plotted using
an angular resolution on 1º. While
this plot only includes data covering
about 150 seconds, the RiverSonde
continuously measures cross-channel
radial velocities and can average
over longer periods.
Radial currents for one 2.5-minute data segment.
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These one-dimensional
velocity map outputs from a RiverSonde
can be combined with those from additional
RiverSondes to create continuous realtime
two-dimensional vector maps of surface
current velocity and direction, in
similar manner as SeaSonde, but on
a smaller scale (spatially and temporally).
Synoptic measurement of 2D velocity
distributions in river flows such as
this is not possible using any other
technology.
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This
system is designed for operation at river's
edge, in populated or remote locations.
Robust
hardware and software allow automated operation
and data processing, even under extreme
weather
and/or vessel traffic conditions when other
in-situ
devices routinely fail.
Development began at CODAR Ocean Sensors
in
1999 with funding from the US Geological
Survey
(USGS), whose aim was to see a non-contact
alternative to present stream gauging methods.
With promising initial results, R&D
continued,
with prototype units having been deployed
and
operated successfully in several western
U.S.
locations.
The RiverSonde is now commercially
available.
A complete set of product information will
be
available shortly at the company web site. |
RiverSonde® Debuts in China
Many
of the populous cities inside China are set
immediately adjacent to rivers, in their
middle and
downstream sections. Over the centuries some
of
these rivers experienced considerable silt
accumulation and sit actually higher than
the
nearby occupied land. Inside rainy season
the storm
runoff from mountainous areas leads to significant
water volumes inside the river channels eventually
passing through major urban areas. With recurring
high risk of flooding, China’s Ministry
of Water
Resources (MWR) has responsibility to make
the
important decisions on when and where to
release
waters for ensuring safety in the higher
density
urban areas. No decision is an easy one,
for even
the “flood plain” release sites
are often sites of
villages and important farm land.
MWR team assembling
the antenna
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Earlier this year the
MWR installed their
first RiverSonde at the
Yi River, inside the
Shandong Province.
MWR assigned a full
technician, scientific
and operations
managerial crew to
participate in this
groundbreaking event
Television news crews
captured the event on film and interviewed
MWR directors who expressed their pride
in China embracing cutting-edge technology
for the important public service of
flood control management.
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Shown here is RiverSonde
antenna being
installed next to a memorial placard
recognizing major flood disasters of
past
years in which thousands perished.
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CODAR Spotlight ~
Ligia Pacheco, Production Manager
Some
may not realize that
CODAR sits in the heart of
the Silicon Valley in northern
California. Given our geographic
presence, two blocks from Google
headquarters, 2 miles from Moffett
Air Base and 15 minutes from
Stanford University, it is not
surprising that many of the
CODAR staff have played roles in
the computer semiconductor and
defense industries, technology
sectors that gave this region its
nickname. The story of Ligia
Pacheco, CODAR’s Production
Manager is a good example:
Ligia began her career in 1973 at
Fairchild Semiconductor doing
assembly inside the PC board
department-- Did you know anyone
who owned a computer then? No,
this was a time when the only PC
systems were owned by government
agencies built for very specific
purposes. It was an exciting time at
Fairchild and the fledgling PC
industry. During this the year
Fairchild introduced the industry’s
first functional device with dielectric
isolation of both emitter-base and
base-collector junctions, and
dramatically reduced system
component sizes. Though this was
Ligia’s first job, she was quickly
promoted into leading a team of
assemblers.
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Within
Fairchild as well as other high-tech companies
she worked for subsequently, such as Trimble
Navigation, Siemens, and Mirage, much of
the production work were one-of-a-kind
prototypes that required high-precision
manufacturing almost entirely done by hand.
For Ligia, the thousands of hand solders
required for prototype 6-layer circuit
boards is enjoyable, like, she says, “putting
together a big, beautiful crossword puzzle”.
While the use of automated, machine board
assembly has increased, it has still been
those sectors wanting the highest quality
and precision that require her types of
skills.
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When CODAR founders decided to bring SeaSonde to commercial status in 1993, Ligia
left Mirage and joined CODAR full-time. Since then and up until the early 2000s,
Ligia handbuilt every SeaSonde and every HF prototype designed at CODAR. In recent
years as the company has grown, she has passed her skills on to several other
CODAR staff members. Still, she prefers to work on the prototypes directly, as
she says it is her passion and she does not want to give up the favorite part
of her job.
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It
was in the late-1980s while working at
stealth defense company
Mirage that she met the CODAR company founders and was hired to hand assemble
the first prototype SeaSondes. At that time CODAR was a very young company and
so the board assembly and other work was performed on weekends inside the garage
of a company founder’s home—does this sound like the story of Hewlett
and Packard?!
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This year we
celebrate Ligia’s 15th year at CODAR
and bring attention to her important contributions
to this industry!
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Software
News ~ Are You Up to date?
SeaSonde
10 Release 5 Update 4 is now available
and shipping on all new SeaSonde systems.
Release 5 Update 4 is compatible with OS
X 10.5.x (Leopard).
OS X 10.4.11 (Tiger) or above is recommended
but the update is also compatible with
OS X 10.3.9 (Panther).
Release 5 Update 2 and earlier SeaSonde
software versions are NOT compatible with
OS 10.5.x (Leopard).
All of the Mac OS incompatibility issues
in Update 3 and earlier versions have been
corrected in Update 4.
You can download Update 4 from:
http://support.codar.com:16080/cust/Software/SeaSonde10R5Up4/
Please contact us if you have forgotten
the login information for the password
protected site.
Additional software update information
is available inside CODAR's customer support
web area at:
http://support.codar.com/cust/Software/SeaSonde10R5Up4/RS10R5_Update4Notes.pdf
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Tech
Tips
How
to Use Range Color Map for Instantaneous
Detection of Change in
Sea Echo Signal
The range color map is like a digital color
plotter that paints a row of colored pixels
with every sweep. The intensity of color
in each pixel represents the echo signal
strength in each range cell. Its rapid updating
(within 0.25 - 1 seconds) makes it
extremely useful for instantaneous detection
of changes in sea echo signal strength. Here
is an example of how it can be used:
Example:
Suppose I want to know how much of the signal
seen in the
spectra (top image) is being produced by
my SeaSonde (in
backscatter mode) and how much is coming
from an unidentified
bistatic source (that is, another SeaSonde
located somewhere else
but operating on the same frequency).
Steps:
Open “Range Color Map” under
SeaSondeAcquisition’s“
Monitor” pulldown menu. Note the color
intensity on the right
margin for a few seconds then turn the transmitter’s
power
switch off. Check the right margin again
and what remains is
signal from an outside source. Then remotely
connect to the
suspect bistatic source and briefly turn
off its transmitter via
SeaSondeController. If the remaining signal
goes away, you’ve
confirmed the source in just a few seconds
time.
Other applications include confirmation of
transponder peaks,
ionospheric echoes, and RF interference.
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UPCOMING
EVENTS
CODAR
WILL BE EXHIBITING AT THE FOLLOWING UPCOMING
EVENTS:
IEEE/MTS
Oceans ’08
Quebec City, Canada
15-18 September 2008
SARSCENE 2008
St. John’s, Newfoundland & Labrador
15-18 October 2008
Ocean Innovation
St. John’s, Newfoundland
20-22 October 2008
Register for the upcoming
Fall 2008 SeaSonde
Training Course
Mountain View, California
3-7 November 2008
Details can be found on the company web site
at:
http://www.codar.com/codar_training9_Fall2008.htm
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RECOMMENDED
READING:
Lipa, B., et al, HF Radar Sea-echo from
Shallow Water, Sensors, 2008,
vol. 8, pp. 4611-4635, DOI: 10.3390/s8084611.
M. Menna, A. Mercatini, M. Uttieri, B.
Buonocore, E. Zambianchi
Wintertime transport processes in the Gulf
of Naples investigated by HF radar measurements
of surface
currents, Il Nuovo Cimento, 30 C (6): 605-62,
doi: 10.1393/ncc/i2008-10270-0.
Ramp, S. R., D. E. Barrick, T. Ito, and
M. S. Cook (2008), Variability of the Kuroshio
Current south of Sagami
Bay as observed using long-range coastal
HF radars, J. Geophys. Res., 113, C06024,
doi:10.1029/2007JC004132.
Visit our company website for an extensive
list of publications.
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If you have
any questions, please email us:  |
1914 Plymouth Street
Mountain View, CA 94043 USA
Phone: +1 (408) 773-8240
Fax: +1 (408) 773-0514
www.codar.com |
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