SEPTENTRIO PolaRx5S, User Manual

Page: 42 / 107

5 Scintillation monitoring with the
PolaRx5S
This chapter covers the con fi guration of the PolaRx5S receiver and the RxLogger GU I tool
for ionospheric scintillation and TEC monitoring.
5.1 High-Level Operation Overview
I n a typical setup, the PolaRx5S generates and outputs 50 Hz phase and amplitude samples
for all visible satellites and frequency bands. These samples are logged on a host PC in hourly
fi les using the provided RxLogger graphical interface tool. At the end of every hour, TEC and
scintillation indices are computed for all visible satellites and logged as comma-delimited
ASC
II records.
The receiver can also output S4 and σ
φ
indices in real time for all tracked satellites.
Appendices E, F and G provide further information on operating the receiver at 100 Hz,
real-time S4 and
σ
φ
output and also on the TEC calibration tool built into
sbf2ismr
.
5.2 Configuring RxLogger
Septentrio provides the RxTools suite of GU I tools among which is RxLogger. The RxLogger
tool provides an easy and convenient way to log and monitor I SMR data from the PolaRx5S. A
short description of the various RxTools and how to install them can be found in Appendix H.
This section details how to use RxLogger for
I SMR fi le generation.
5.2.1 Connecting To the Receiver
The fi rst time you run RxLogger, you will need to create a new connection. Future
connections will reuse the last connection by default. Please refer to the RxControl Manual
for a complete description of the connection options
For I SMR data logging, it is recommended to use either:
• one of the two Virtual USB COM port connections or
• an Ethernet connection (TCP/ I P) to connect RxLogger to the receiver.
The example given in Figure 5-1 shows a connection via the USB COM Port1 of the receiver
which maps onto the COM11 port of the PC.
The standard serial ports should not be used because their bandwidth is too low to support
the high data throughput required for ionospheric scintillation monitoring.
42