{"id":6,"date":"2018-09-16T15:55:15","date_gmt":"2018-09-16T15:55:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ejmilton.uk\/?page_id=6"},"modified":"2020-10-08T13:45:34","modified_gmt":"2020-10-08T13:45:34","slug":"blitzortung","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/ejmilton.uk\/index.php\/blitzortung\/","title":{"rendered":"Lightning network"},"content":{"rendered":"

‘Blitzortung’ is a citizen science network designed to record the location of lightning strikes in near real time (within a few seconds). It is based on the ‘time of arrival’ method in which the location of a strike is determined by comparing the time taken for a pulse of electromagnetic radiation to reach several widely separated receivers. Worldwide, there are over 2,500 receiving stations in the Blitzortung network and the number is growing all the time. A list of stations in the UK is here<\/a>, with my own station listed as 1509 Bridport.<\/p>\n

Each receiving station consists of the following items:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. One or more antennae to detect electromagnetic pulses (EMP) from lightning strikes.<\/li>\n
  2. A GPS receiver to provide a very accurate time signal.<\/li>\n
  3. A receiver to process the data and communicate with a central server in Germany.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    In order to locate each lightning strike accurately it is necessary to sample the waveforms resulting from EMP with high frequency (512 samples at 500 kHz) and assign each an accurate time stamp (+\/- 1 microsecond). The very precise timing is achieved using a GPS receiver at each receiving station location. The receiver detects signals in the VLF\/LF frequency range between 3 kHz and 300 kHz. It has three input channels for H-field antennas and one input channel for an E-Field antenna.<\/p>\n

    EMP waveforms from different receivers define a set of hyperbolic curves which are analysed in the central server, and the intersection of these curves determines the location of the lightning strike. In practice, only a few receivers contribute to each strike location, as some strikes will be too close to measure the time precisely, or some receivers will be in sub-optimal locations for the triangulation process to be accurate. The Bridport station, for example, is mostly used for strikes over Spain, Portugal and northern France.<\/p>\n

    The whole process of receiving the EMP, analysing the time and location data and presenting the result on a map is completely automated and only takes a few seconds.<\/p>\n

    \"\"<\/p>\n

    Example EMP from Briport node<\/h6>\n

    Further information<\/span><\/h4>\n

    Social Media: https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/Blitzortung\/<\/a><\/p>\n

    \"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    ‘Blitzortung’ is a citizen science network designed to record the location of lightning strikes in near real time (within a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ejmilton.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/6"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ejmilton.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ejmilton.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ejmilton.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ejmilton.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/ejmilton.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/6\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":547,"href":"https:\/\/ejmilton.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/6\/revisions\/547"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ejmilton.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}