Balloon launches for TEXAQS 2006 consisted of regular rawinsonde launches using the Vaisala RS-92 digital sonde with GPS wind finding and ozonesondes using the Vaisala RS-92 digital sonde with GPS wind finding attached to an EnSci Modle Z ozone sonde. For normal rawinsonde launches, one output file was generated (EDT): YYMMDDhhmmss_EDT_LATLON.txt ****Sample EDT format**** RS Serial #: B2134326 Station Name: WTEC Launch Time: 2258Z Launch Date: 27 JUL 06 EDT LEVEL OUTPUT with GPS Lat, Long, Alt Time Height Pressure Temp Dew P. RH W Spd W Dir Lat Long GPS Alt sec mtrs hPa øC øC Pct m/s Az ø Decimal ø Decimal ø mtrs -0.52 7.0 1017.6 29.35 24.6 75 4.7 193.0 31.7231557 -80.2838551 -82.7 0.48 11.6 1017.1 29.40 24.6 75 4.1 184.9 31.7231913 -80.2839086 -75.3 **************************** Measure quanities inlclude temperature, pressure, and relative humidity. All other quanities are calculated from these. Height is the geopotential height. Launch time and date are UTC Time (sec) is the time that the system senses the pressure change signifying the balloon has been released. For ozonesonde launches, there were 2 output files: YYMMDDhhmmss_EDT_LATLON.txt (described above) YYMMDDhhmmss_Ozone.txt YYMMDDhhmmss_Ozonedn.txt ***** Sample ozone file output Time P T U Height O3 Tbox 3538.25 1015.03 302.519 72.6061 10.5001 1.97319 32.3985 3539.25 1014.04 302.666 68.099 19.2929 1.97348 32.4147 ********************* All quantities in the file are measured. Time is the time since the Vaisala data collection program was started. This can be an hour or greater, because of time it takes to set-up an ozonesonde. To get a GPS Lat/Lon for the ozonde data, one must interpolate using pressure and the EDT file. The original ozone file was split into an up and "dn" portion. The dn portion is after the balloon bursts and contains information that should be used in a relative since, because it isn't know what the fall orientation of the sonde was which could affect the data. The units on the O3 data are partial pressure of ozone in miliPascals (mPa). If you divide mPa by ambient pressure (in mbar) and multiply by 10 you get ozone mixing ratio in ppm (mulitply that by 1000 to get ppb). The 'box Temp' is the temperature (C) of the thermistor in the pump block. It is used by the algorithm that converts cell current to O3 partial pressure. It is not that important in and of itself except that if it is over 40C the cell is too hot and if it is 2C or less it means that the electrochemical cell can freeze. I think that happened a few times. On the second leg we started putting the battery pack on the metal frame inside the box to add a little heat as it appeared that we were usually too cold and not to hot (mostly because the box was prepared in the 'cold hydro' lab). P = mb T = K U = relative humidity % Ht = geopotential height m Time = secs