CSIRO Marine Research/RV Franklin Processed Navigation, Sounder, Thermosalinograph and Meteorology data format
(Underway data)


Example data format:

GEN10-MAR-1994 00:20 4302.51S 147 22.85E17 16.78 32.70
MET17.9 5.7 315.186.4 1015.8 536.59.3 305.0 99.212.4 6.7
GEN10-MAR-1994 00:25 4303.55S 147 22.92E15 16.95 32.87
MET18.1 10.9 334.385.3 1015.8 540.35.7 304.8 59.911.9 12.9
GEN10-MAR-1994 00:30 4304.30S 147 23.87E17 17.03 33.01
MET18.4 13.7 349.684.4 1015.8 537.72.7 342.4 49.012.4 15.8
GEN10-MAR-1994 00:35 4304.97S 147 24.98E22 17.20 33.18
MET17.9 12.4 352.687.8 1015.8 538.11.6 314.9 49.312.5 14.0
GEN10-MAR-1994 00:40 4305.62S 147 26.12E26 16.85 33.50
MET17.8 13.5 337.589.2 1015.7 543.45.2 321.7 49.312.3 15.5
GEN10-MAR-1994 00:45 4306.23S 147 27.27E31 16.74 33.71
MET17.2 14.1 325.591.3 1015.7 551.58.0 315.3 48.912.1 16.6
GEN10-MAR-1994 00:50 4306.86S 147 28.40E35 16.86 33.74
MET17.2 13.9 318.391.2 1015.7 560.79.5 309.7 50.612.2 16.5


Key to data fields:

Line 1

1. Date and time string (UTC) at the start of the five minute average

2. Latitude at the start of the five minute average

3. Longitude at the start of the five minute average

4. Depth in metres

5. Sea surface temperature (degrees C)

6. Sea surface salinity (psu)

Line 2

1. Average atmospheric temperature (degrees C)

2. Uncorrected wind speed (knots)- vector average over the five minutes

3. Uncorrected wind direction (degrees T)

4. Humidity - percent

5. Air pressure - mBar

6. Licor light meter - radiation intensity in micro einsteins/metre squared

7. Corrected wind speed - as 2 and 3

8. Corrected wind direction

9. Ship's direction - as 3 and 2

10. Ship's speed

11 Maximum wind speed over the five minues - knots

Notes

1. Where bad data has been removed for a channel, the value is left blank.

2. Where no GPS or back interpolated navigation data was available the latitude and longitude are left blank.

3. An example of some FORTRAN code which would read this data is :

READ(UNIT=__,1000)CDATE,CLAT,CLON,IDEPTH,RWTEMP,RSAL,

1 RTEMP,RUNCWS,RUNCWD,RHUM,RBARP,RLICOR,

1 RWSPEED,RWINDD,RSHDIR,RSHSP,RGUST

1000 FORMAT(4X,A17,X,A9,X,A10,X,I4,2(F6.2),/

1 3X,11(F7.1)

where CDATE, CLAT and CLON are CHARACTER variables of length 17, 9 and 10 characters respectively.

4. Wind directions are from as in the meteorological convention.



Additional information about Underway data collection

RV Franklin:

Anemometer is (approx)19m above sea level
130mm Rimco Cup anemometer, driving a generator that produces a DC voltage proportional to wind speed.
Starting Threshold = 0.5 m/s
Maximum speed = 100 kt (51.5 m/s)

Wind Direction:
We use a standard Rimco wind direction unit

Temperature:
We use a solid state temperature sensor, AD-590J Sensor output is 1uA/degree Kelvin Logged data must lie within the range -5 degrees Celsius to +45 degrees Celsius

Humidity
Vaisala Humidity probe HMP35A Measures 0 to 100% Humidity

Light:
Licor model LI-192SB.
4.52 uA per 1000 micromol/second/square metre
Acceptable data range is 0 to 2000 micro Eisnteins per square metre

Depth:
Echo Sounder type Simrad EA 400 was used from RV Franklin Voyage 03/1985 - Voyage 04/1992
Echo Sounder type Simrad EA 500 was used from RV Franklin Voyage 05/1992 - present.

This information is maintained by Franklin Electronics staff, starting with Mark Underwood.

TSG water intake system info as supplied by Ships Engineer in Feb 2001:
1. Depth of the water intakes for the fire mains (sea chests I assume ?) They are approx. 2m below SL. Greg says that with normal trim, that this value is to within 0.2m. 2. Depth of TSG intake - is this from the same intake system as the fire mains ? TSG intake is at the same depth as the sea chests. Physically it is just aft of the starboard sea chest - a separate pipe into the hull. The pump is a 4000 lt/hr mono pump pushing water into 40mm PVC pipe. I would guess that there is approx. 15m of pipe before the TSG. By my calculations, this means that the pipe volume (75lt) is replaced in just over a minute. The intake thermometer is approximately 1m inside, and before the pump.

Position Data 1 as supplied by Bernadette Heaney in Nov 2001:

  A Trimble 4000A GPS unit was installed in 1985; if it had a reference position within 1 mile it could output 1.5 - 2 hours coverage per day. Otherwise the position was derived from Satnav data (usually one fix per hour) and "back interpolating positions" for every minute.
1990 the Ashtech OEM sensor was installed.
The Ship obtained a Trimble navtrack unit in 1991. If there is no position available from the primary navigation data instrument the data from the secondary unit is recorded ie the position data could have originated from the Trimble.
A RACAL differential GPS was trialled on 10 and 11 /94. RACAL was expensive as it used Inmarsat.
FR 10/96 a third GPS was trialled on a Ray Binns voyage. A receiver was set up on an island.
The Fugro (which uses Aussat) was installed for FR 8/97 for differential correction. We have differential GPS correction for the "Australian" footprint only.
The 3df-GPS was installed in 1999 ("gpa"). The position data is not differentially corrected. The heading data is mainly used for ADCP data processing.
FR 5/99 - the G8 was installed. The firmware had to be corrected as we'd receive no data at all if there wasn't any differential correction. The G8 also had a problem of not updating the heading data if the speed was less than about 2 knots.
Selective availability of the GPS data was turned off by the American military giving much improved positions - 1 May 2000.
The G12 was installed for FR 5/2000. We are still using the Fugro differential correction. Data is still being processed in the "old" way, the binary files from the ship containing 1 second lat, lon, speed and direction and producing 1 minute position values. But also full nmea VTG and GGA strings are recorded.

Position Data 2 as supplied by Mark Underwood in Dec 2001:  

WGS-84 is the only ellipsoid built into the last three GPS engines we have used (the Ashtec OEM, the G8 and the current G12)

Position Data 3: Information from  http://www.wgs84.com

World Geodetic System 1984 (WGS 84)

WGS 84 is an earth fixed global reference frame, including an earth model. It is defined by a set of primary and secondary parameters:

 

 


RV Southern Surveyor

Anemometer is 23.3m above sea level.
Specification: Young model 05103 Wind Monitor
Sensor: 18cm 4 blade helicoid propellor
Range: 0 to 60m/sec
Wind Direction sensor: balanced vane

Temperature:
Young model 41404 temperature sensors
Range: -50 to 50deg C

This information is maintained by Southern Surveyor Electronics staff, starting with Matt Sherlock.


This page last updated: 06 November 1999