K and A index are incorrect in header

[NN7D]

Funny, all day today, K index was showing 0 in the Log4OM header margin, but I had email warnings of impending solar storm. A buddy told me the K index was 4 for most of the day. Checked several other sources and he is right. Restarted Log4OM and the K index displayed in the header is still stuck at 0, and A index is also low at 2, should be 8. SFI and Sunspots are correct at 77 and 14 respectively.

Doing a bit of detective work, I find in the log file that Log4OM is polling ftp://ftp.swpc.noaa.gov/pub/latest/DGD.txt for K and A data, and ftp://ftp.swpc.noaa.gov/pub/latest/DSD.txt for SFI and Sunspots. Taking a look at the first source manually through my browser I find this data for yesterday and today. Notice the data going negative?? Is the data bad coming out of NOAA?

# Middle Latitude High Latitude Estimated
# - Fredericksburg - ---- College ---- --- Planetary ---
# Date A K-indices A K-indices A K-indices
2016 10 23 -1 -1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1 16 0 1 5 4 4 2 2 2 9 1 2 3 2 2 2 3 3
2016 10 24 -1 -1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1 -1 3-1-1-1-1-1-1-1 11 4-1-1-1-1-1-1-1

Anyone else notice this? Has your K and A index been erroneously low?

Doug - W7DRM

[VA3AG]

Funny, all day today, K index was showing 0 in the Log4OM header margin, but I had email warnings of impending solar storm. A buddy told me the K index was 4 for most of the day. Checked several other sources and he is right. Restarted Log4OM and the K index displayed in the header is still stuck at 0, and A index is also low at 2, should be 8. SFI and Sunspots are correct at 77 and 14 respectively.

Doing a bit of detective work, I find in the log file that Log4OM is polling ftp://ftp.swpc.noaa.gov/pub/latest/DGD.txt for K and A data, and ftp://ftp.swpc.noaa.gov/pub/latest/DSD.txt for SFI and Sunspots. Taking a look at the first source manually through my browser I find this data for yesterday and today. Notice the data going negative?? Is the data bad coming out of NOAA?

# Middle Latitude High Latitude Estimated
# - Fredericksburg - ---- College ---- --- Planetary ---
# Date A K-indices A K-indices A K-indices
2016 10 23 -1 -1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1 16 0 1 5 4 4 2 2 2 9 1 2 3 2 2 2 3 3
2016 10 24 -1 -1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1 -1 3-1-1-1-1-1-1-1 11 4-1-1-1-1-1-1-1

Anyone else notice this? Has your K and A index been erroneously low?

Doug - W7DRM

Yes I can confirm that the same problem is happening here!

73

[IW3HMH]

-1 means data not available (usually the time of the day has not been reached yet)

a couple of -1 followed by valid values are a strange behaviour from NOAA

[NN7D]

The K and A index seemed to be fine the next day. I speculate that it was a NOAA data issue.

Thanks for the replies!

Doug - W7DRM