SonTek/YSI Argonaut-XR Technical Manual - HydroScientific West

SonTek/YSI
8.1.2. Setup for Collecting Wave Frequency Spectra
Only an Argonaut XR/SL with pressure sensor and CPU firmware version 3.6 or later can be
setup to collect wave spectra. Wave setup commands that affect wave data collection of the
Argonaut are described below.
WaveSpectra [YES|NO]
• Enables or disables the collection of wave spectra.
WaterDepth or WD [d.d]
• Specifies the water depth at the deployment site, in meters. WD is necessary for choosing
the appropriate dispersion relation in wave spectra computations.
• If not given, the Argonaut’s depth (calculated from mean pressure) is used.
• A WD setting less than zero is interpreted as the height of the Argonaut above the bottom
(e.g., height of the Argonaut within the mooring structure), and the value is used together
with the mean pressure to determine the true water depth. This is most commonly done
when the exact depth of the site is unknown.
RecordPressureSeries or RPS [YES|NO]
• Enables or disables the recording of the raw pressure series data.
• When set to YES, the Argonaut stores 1024 samples of raw pressure (collected at 1 Hz) at
the end of the sampling interval, regardless of the sampling interval length.
8.1.3. Wave Data Format
If WaveSpectra is enabled, the Argonaut will output 12 integer values at the end of each sample
(after CTD data, if present). The first 10 fields correspond to the mean wave amplitudes (in mm)
for each of the period bands 1 through 10. The 11 th field is the significant wave height (in mm)
computed as described in §8.1.1. The 12 th field is the peak period (in units of 0.1 s).
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Argonaut ASCII Data Output - Wave Sample Data (No CTD)
Format/Fields Description Unit
Long – 29-38
Short – 15-24
Wave amplitude for 10 period bands mm
Long – 39
Short – 25
Significant wave height mm
Long – 40
Short – 26
Wave peak period 0.1 s
In ASCII mode these values are output spaced by six digits. In Binary mode, each is output as a
2-byte unsigned integer. More detail on the binary data output is available in Appendix 1.
The output of the data extraction program GARGSAMP (or EARGSAMP) is similar to the
Argonaut ASCII output. The only difference is that the wave amplitudes are reported in cm (or
inches) for consistency with other data types. The peak period is converted to seconds.
Argonaut Operation Manual Firmware Version 7.9 (May 1, 2001)