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STEREO SCIENCE CENTER

Information about STEREO-A close approach to Earth, August 2023

S/WAVES Resources

This is a list of links to resource pages for the STEREO WAVES (S/WAVES) instrument, where both descriptions of the instrument and "How To" hints can be found.

  1. Instrument/Hardware description

  2. Instrument papers:
  3. Data file descriptions

    • References on file formats used.
      • STEREO/WAVES 1-minute average files
      • One minute averages of the STEREO/WAVES data from the low (lfr) and high (hfr) frequency receivers are produced in daily files. For each spacecraft, there are 3 files produced each day: (1) an ASCII file of the lfr data (48 channels), (2) an ASCII file of the hfr data (319 channels), and (3) and IDL 'sav' file that is the sum of lfr and hfr (367 channels) combined into one. The naming convention for the files is:

        stereo-a (or b)_swaves_lfr_average_YYYYMMDD_vNN.txt for the lfr ASCII data Ahead (Behind)
        stereo-a (or b)_swaves_hfr_average_YYYYMMDD_vNN.txt for the hfr ASCII data Ahead (Behind)
        stereo-a (or b)_swaves_hfr-lfr_average_YYYMMDD_vNN.sav for the lfr+hfr IDL version
        

        where YYYYMMDD represents the date, and NN represents the version number.

        Each file contains (a) a list of the frequencies in the file (in kHz), (b) the background value used in (currently) arbitrary decibel (dB) units, (c) the 2-dimensional (# of frequencies X 1440 minutes per day) array of averages in dB above the average (i.e. value-average in dB). Missing data is indicated by a value less than 0.

        The specific format for the ASCII files is:

        • f9.1 for frequencies (so, 48f9.1 for lfr or 319f9.1 for hfr)
        • f8.3 for backgrounds (so, 48f8.3 or 319 f8.3)
        • f8.3 for the data with each frequency line preceded with an i4 value

        indicating the start minute of the averaging bin (thus, (i4,48f8.3) repeated 1440 times for lfr and (i4,319f8.3) repeated 1440 times for hfr)

        The IDL sav files are self-evident after the usual 'restore' command.

      • STEREO/WAVES Time Domain Sampler files

        Time domain sampler files are available in ASCII format. The naming convention for the files is:

        stereo-a (or b)_swaves_tds_average_YYYYMMDD_vNN.txt for the tds ASCII data Ahead (Behind)
        

    • Data file calibration status.
    • S/WAVES level 0 data is in telemetry counts. We make no permanent level 1 file; rather this is created on the fly with the S/WAVES TMlib package (available from U of Minn -- require IDL)

    • Suggested method for reading data
    • 1-minute averages are simple ASCII as documented above Level 0 data through TMlib

    • Data source
    • All available through STEREO and S/WAVES web sites. (See also old S/WAVES site). Additionally, 1-minute averages are served by CDAWeb.

  4. Software

    • Recommended software and where to get it.
    • We will make dynamic spectra plotting program available (IDL). TMlib available from U of Minn -- contact goetz@waves.space.umn.edu for set-up advice.

    • Alternative software
    • CDAWeb has their own version of dynamic spectrum program and can create tailored plots.

    • Calibration
    • Absolute calibration still in progress. All values currently in relative calibration

  5. Contact for help

  6. A contact email for those still having problems: Keith Goetz, goetz@umn.edu


    Last Revised: Friday, 02-Dec-2022 22:03:02 UTC
    Responsible NASA Official: [email address: Therese.A.Kucera<at>nasa<dot>gov]
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