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3. TRAINING
IPC VU Pari 3: Contributions tö Symposium
It was essential that the Station staff achieve a thorough understanding of the equipment and
its maintenance to realize the project's goal of coHecting high-quality solar radiation data for the
SoutheasL We deveioped ä training seminar and field Operations manuai to introduce the project
änd serve as a reference. The seminar was presented by a SERI scientist when the equipment was
Erst installed. The Eeld manuai contains a thorough review of the basic Station Operations, and a
copy was left at each Station.
Several staff changes have occurred at the HBCU stations, owing to the use of students for
the routine Operations. The faculty has done an excellent job of retraining new students. The
success of the project can be attributed to the demonstrated interest and enthusiasm of the Station
staff.
4. STATION OPERATION
Routine maintenance and operational checks are made daily at each of the six HBCU solar
monitoring stations. Using a Standard log form deveioped at SERI (see Figure 3), the observer
systematically checks and records the Station equipment functions and current meteorologica!
eonditions. This Information is then available for data reduction and analysis at SERI.
The completed log fbrms and printed data output are coHected and sent to SERI biweekly.
This provides an important record of the station's Performance and can be used to identify probiems.
By the third day of each month, the cassette tape in the data-logging system is removed from the
recorder; it is then annotated with the Station name, date, and time of removal and mailed to SERI.
A new cassette is prepared for recording the next month of data. This tape exchange can be
aecomplished between the regulär data transfers from the data logger memory and the tape recorder
so that no data are lost in the process.
As part of the quality assurance requirements för the project, all radiometers and data loggers
are recalibrated at SERI's metrology laboratory (Myers, 1988). When equipment failures occur, we
diagnose the probiem over the teiephone and quickly send the necessary replacement equipment to
the Station.
5. DATA PROCESSING AND ANALYSIS
About 500,000 characters are stored monthly at each Station on cassette tape. At SERI, the
data are transferred from cassette to ASCII Eies on personal Computer (PC) diskettes, which also
serve as the archive media för the original data. The ASCII files are then transferred to a VAX/VMS
Computer system for analysis. Each 5-minute data point is then ässessed for quality, a monthly report
is prepared (summary data in hourly and daüy intervais), and the data are archived in SERI's Standard
broadband format (SERI, 1988).
Our data quality assessment Software (SERI QC) assigns a 2-digit flag describing the outcome
of the evaluations. No measured data are replaced or changed in any manner. The flag is positioned
next to each data vame as prescribed in the SBF archival format.
As a result of the interest and dedication of the HBCU participants, the average annual data
recovery for the network has been better than 98%.
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