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DIGISONDE-4D
SYSTEM MANUAL
VERSION 1.2.11
5-30 SECTION 5 - SYSTEM SOFTWARE – ANNEX A
COMMON DATA ELEMENTS
Measurement Program
5:77. Measurement program, or simply Program, is a set of parameters that uniquely specify particular
measurement taken by the DPS. All Program types have the same first field, “Operation Code” (OpCode),
which is followed by Operation, a specific structure of parameters defining the DPS operation. DPS keeps an
array of 128 Program specifications in memory. There are four kinds of Programs, each having different Op-
Code and Operation structure:
5:78. 1. Empty Operation (OpCode = 0) is a no-action operation. It is used to label unused entries in the array
of Programs. If DESC is commanded to run an Empty Operation, it generates an error message. The Operation
structure of this command is empty.
5:79. 2. Sounding Operation (OpCode = 1) represents the most commonly used measurement mode of the
DPS when DESC commands hardware to transmit signals and sample antenna voltages. The Ionogram and
Drift measurements both fall into this category.
5:80. 3. Built-in Test Operation (OpCode = 2) is a housekeeping mode of DPS operations in which DESC
collects sensor data in various modes to diagnose condition of the Digisonde
®
hardware. This test returns result
data, which is useful for engineers and also can be used by DCART for sending alert messages.
5:81. 4. Channel Equalizing operation (OpCode = 3) represents operational mode in which DPS is config-
ured to send an attenuated transmitter signal to Antenna Switch to determine amplitude and phase differences
between four receiver channels.
5:82. When DESC or DCART software need to interpret one Program object, they read the Operation Code
first, and then they have enough information to appropriately unpack the rest of the Operation structure.
Empty Program
Table 5A- 4 contains a description of the Empty Program.
Table 5A- 4: Empty Program Specification (Length 1 Byte)
Operation code. Contains constant 0.
Sounding Program
5:83. The Sounding Program has the largest number of user-selected parameters in its Operation structure.
The parameters can be divided in three sections:
• Operation Option
• Common Specification of the sounding measurement
• Data Processing Selection:
o All processing steps that have to be applied to raw data
o Processing steps that preferably to be applied by DESC, - these processing steps matched to
some starting subsequence of all processing steps
5:84. Operation Option is used to describe whether Digisonde
®
produces actual measurement data or simu-
lates one of available test patterns.
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