Phase 3 NEXRAD spike: IEM n0q composite available at 5-min cadence
back to 2022+. Compression-ratio proxy shows afternoon images have
13-81% more texture than dawn (directionally correct), but the n0q
product thresholds out the faint clear-air returns needed for BL
stability detection. Parked until MRMS or Level III products can be
investigated. See docs/research/nexrad_spike.md.
Phase 6: hrrr_climatology table aggregating surface_temp_c by
(lat, lon, month, hour) from the 42M+ hrrr_profiles grid-point
rows. mix hrrr_climatology builds it via a single SQL GROUP BY +
upsert. Backtest.Features.temperature_anomaly computes current_temp
minus climatological mean — the meteorologist's "temperature
deviation above normal" predictor for summer afternoon enhancement.
Add Propagation.Region module with 8 CONUS climate zones (gulf_coast,
southeast, southern_plains, corn_belt, northeast, desert_southwest,
pacific_northwest, mountain_west) and per-region monthly seasonal
adjustment multipliers.
The scorer's score_season now takes lat/lon and applies a regional
multiplier from Region.seasonal_adjustment on top of the band's
seasonal_base + seasonal_adj. Gulf coast August gets a 1.15x boost
(drier, better for ducting) while Corn Belt August gets a 0.80x
penalty (corn evapotranspiration = miserable dewpoints).
Adjustments are hand-tuned starting points from the meteorologist's
qualitative guidance. Phase 9 recalibration will refine them from
backtest data.
Duct module (Propagation.Duct):
- refractivity_profile/1: ITU-R P.453 N at each native level
- m_profile/1: modified refractivity M = N + 157*h(km)
- detect_ducts/1: find contiguous regions where dM/dh < 0, returning
base/top height, thickness, and M-deficit per duct
- min_trapped_frequency_ghz/1: waveguide approximation (Bean & Dutton)
for the minimum frequency a duct of given geometry can trap
- analyze/1: full pipeline from native profile to duct list + best
trapped frequency across all ducts
Derive task updated to also compute ducts JSONB and best_duct_band_ghz
alongside the Phase 2 turbulence fields.
Backtest features: duct_thickness, best_duct_freq, duct_usable_10ghz,
duct_usable_24ghz, duct_usable_47ghz.
Real-data validation: 2022-08-20 12Z TX profile shows 0 ducts (M
increases monotonically) — correct for a well-mixed boundary layer
on a turbulent August afternoon (Ri=0.16).
bulk_richardson, theta_e_jump, and shear_at_top feature functions
pull derived fields from the nearest hrrr_native_profile. Ready for
mix backtest once sufficient data is backfilled.
Inversion detection module (Propagation.Inversion):
- find_inversion_top/1 walks the native profile to locate the first
temperature inversion (surface-based or elevated)
- bulk_richardson/3 computes the Richardson number across the
inversion layer (Ri < 0.25 = turbulent, > 1 = laminar/good)
- shear_magnitude/3 computes the wind shear vector magnitude
- potential_temperature/2 for θ = T*(P0/P)^0.286
Theta-e module (Weather.ThetaE):
- Bolton (1980) equivalent potential temperature
- dewpoint_from_spfh/2 via Magnus-Tetens inversion
- theta_e_jump/3 for the thermodynamic decoupling metric
mix hrrr_native_derive_fields populates inversion_top_m,
bulk_richardson, theta_e_jump_k, and shear_at_top_ms on existing
hrrr_native_profiles rows.
First real data: 2022-08-20 12Z TX profile shows inversion at
186 m, Ri = 0.16 (turbulent), θ_e jump = 0.33 K — consistent with
marginal propagation conditions at that hour.
wgrib2 -lola ... bin writes Fortran unformatted records (4-byte
length header + data + 4-byte length trailer per message).
parse_lola_binary was treating the binary as tightly packed,
causing every message after the first to read from the wrong
offset — values came out as garbage across all grid points.
Fix: account for the 8-byte record overhead per message when
computing the data offset for each message's grid values.
This bug affects both the existing propagation grid extraction
(which may have been producing subtly wrong scores) and the new
native-level extraction (which was producing obviously wrong
values). The fix is a one-line stride change.
Also adds Backtest.Features.native_surface_refractivity for the
Phase 1 sanity check, plus a tighter wgrib2 match pattern that
selects only hybrid-level messages from the native file.
The Elixir GRIB2 decoder didn't map level type 105 (hybrid) or
variable IDs for SPFH and TKE, so native-level messages decoded as
"unknown:105:N" keys that build_native_profile couldn't find. Add
the three missing mappings to Section.identify_level/identify_var.
Also add HrrrNativeClient.extract_native_profiles/2 which uses
wgrib2's -lola on a tight bounding-box subgrid for speed (the pure
Elixir decoder takes ~70s per point on a 395 MB file; wgrib2 handles
40 points in seconds). The worker now routes through this path.
- Spike docs at docs/research/hrrr_native_levels.md confirming files
are on AWS S3 for 5+ years, 50 hybrid levels, and include TKE and
SPFH needed for Phase 2 turbulence features. Architectural finding:
per-point on-demand fetching is impractical (~530 MB/file), so
the ingestion worker batches per (date, hour) instead.
- hrrr_native_profiles schema: arrays per level plus cached surface
scalars and placeholder columns for Phase 2/4 derived fields.
Strictly additive — the existing hrrr_profiles table is untouched.
- HrrrNativeClient: pure URL/message-list helpers, build_native_profile/1
that turns a parsed wgrib2 map into the schema shape (TDD'd).
- Exposed HrrrClient.download_grib_ranges/2 so the native client
reuses the existing parallel byte-range download + disk cache.
- HrrrNativeGridWorker: Oban worker keyed on {year, month, day, hour},
unique at :infinity, pulls distinct (lat, lon) points from contacts
in the ±30 min window, downloads the native grib2, extracts per
point, bulk-upserts.
- mix hrrr_native_backfill --limit N enqueues the top-N hours by
contact count.
Phase 1 gate still pending Task 1.6 (sanity-check backtest after
live data lands).
mix backtest --feature NaiveGradient now resolves to the same function
as --feature naive_gradient. Names are normalized via Macro.underscore,
so any casing works. Also prints the available functions when an
unknown feature is requested so typos don't produce an opaque
UndefinedFunctionError deep in the Enum.map stack.
Add Microwaveprop.Backtest: a feature-evaluation framework that runs
a (lat, lon, valid_time) -> float function over the historical QSO
corpus and a matched random-time baseline, reporting distribution
statistics, distance-binned lift, and band-stratified lift.
Adds four baseline feature wrappers around the current scorer inputs
(naive_gradient, td_depression, time_of_day, pressure), a mix backtest
CLI, and the first set of baseline reports under priv/backtest_reports
so downstream phases have a frozen reference point to compare against.
The slow CDS submit/poll/download cycle of the month-batch worker was
sharing the era5 queue with the cheap Era5FetchWorker router, and its
2 concurrent slots were permanently pinned by long-running batch jobs
while hundreds of router jobs starved. Give the batch worker its own
era5_batch queue (also 2 concurrent per pod) so the router has
dedicated capacity.
Vendor oban_web 2.12.1 and oban_met 1.1.0 (taken from the
towerops-web2 vendor tree), bump oban to ~> 2.21, and mount the Oban
dashboard at /admin/oban behind the existing require_admin on_mount
hook. Adds an admin-only "Oban" nav link and extends the Dockerfile
to copy vendor/ before deps.get so production builds pick up the
path dependencies.
When a contact is linked to a logged-in user account, display that
user's callsign in the Submitted column instead of a generic "Yes".
Anonymous submissions still show "Yes"; scraped contacts show an em
dash.
Add a per-entry progress bar (with cancel) while a CSV streams in, and
replace the small post-commit alert with a prominent "X contacts
submitted" confirmation card.
Drops the formal "What we're trying to do / The approach / The stack"
scaffolding for a shorter, first-person telling: line-of-sight is
wrong, here's what we're doing about it, here's what's in the box,
here's what's next. Adds a highlighted note that the scoring is
hand-calibrated and not updated in real time, with links to the
algorithm page and the submit page so readers can help close the
loop.
Contacts now carry a user_id FK to users. When a logged-in user
submits a contact (single or CSV upload), the server injects their
user_id and the email from their account into the submission params,
and the visible email input is replaced with a hidden input holding
that value — logged-in users don't have to retype their address.
The submission changeset now requires at least one of user_id or
submitter_email (rather than hard-requiring email), and email format
is only validated when one is actually present.
Reworded the submit-page blurb from "10 GHz to 241 GHz" to "902 MHz
and up" so it matches the actual band coverage of the project.
Per-point ERA5 fetches were tragically slow because every point-hour
triggered its own asynchronous CDS job (submit → poll → assemble →
download). For backfill this meant thousands of independent jobs
queued against Copernicus. The new path groups requests by calendar
month and a 2° × 2° lat/lon tile so one CDS cycle populates ~60k
profiles at once, and Oban uniqueness on (year, month, tile_lat,
tile_lon) collapses every duplicate enqueue.
- Era5BatchClient builds the monthly CDS requests, extracts every
(lat, lon, hour) from the GRIB2 blob with wgrib2, derives
refractivity params, and bulk-inserts in 2k-row chunks with
on_conflict: :nothing. fetch_month_into_db/1 short-circuits when
the month-tile already has any cached profile.
- Era5MonthBatchWorker runs the batch on the :era5 queue with a
generous backoff (10m → 1d) and the uniqueness key above.
- Era5FetchWorker is now a thin router: cache hit → :ok, cache miss
→ enqueue the month-batch for the point's tile-month and return.
No more per-point CDS calls.
- Wgrib2 grows extract_grid_messages/3 which preserves per-message
datetimes by parsing `d=YYYYMMDDHH[MMSS]` from the inventory, so a
single GRIB2 file carrying a whole month decodes correctly.
- The era5_backfill mix task enqueues month-tile batches directly.
Uploads now show a review page with three summary cards (valid,
duplicates, invalid), tables for invalid and duplicate rows, and a
sample of the first 20 valid rows. Nothing is written to the database
until the user clicks "Looks good — submit N contacts".
Duplicate detection treats two rows as the same contact if they share
the same pair of (callsign, grid) tuples (direction-agnostic), the
same band, and timestamps within 60 minutes. Dedup runs against both
existing DB contacts (single band/time-scoped query) and earlier rows
in the same upload, and the preview labels which side matched.
CsvImport grows preview/2 + commit/1; the old import/2 is kept as a
thin backward-compat wrapper that skips dedup. Added 11 new CsvImport
tests and reworked the SubmitLive CSV tests for the two-step flow.
Pruning used to only run at the end of a successful PropagationGridWorker
pass, so a stretch of failed compute jobs (k8s OOM kills, SIGTERM)
stopped prune from running and let the table accumulate ~5h of stale
rows. A dedicated PropagationPruneWorker now runs every 15 minutes on
its own Oban cron, and PropagationGridWorker also calls prune_old_scores
at the start of each run as a second safety net. Bumped the delete
timeout from 2m to 5m so the first catch-up pass has enough headroom.
New PrivacyLive page explains that collected/submitted data is used
only for propagation research and will never be sold, traded, or
disclosed. Layouts.app now renders a small footer with the NTMS
attribution and a Privacy link on every page that uses it, so the
full-screen map pages are untouched. The duplicate NTMS credit on
the About page is removed since it now lives in the shared footer.
OSM's tile usage policy requires a Referer header identifying the site.
strict-origin-when-cross-origin is the current browser default and sends
the origin on HTTPS→HTTPS cross-origin requests; pinning it explicitly
prevents silently losing the header if a browser default ever changes.
- Beacon map defaults to just the marker at zoom 11. A daisyUI toggle
switch shows/hides the estimated-coverage cell layer; the coverage
info line and tier legend are hidden unless the toggle is on.
- Beacon detail list replaced with a compact dl grid (2-4 columns).
Lat/lon rounded to 5 decimals, power/height/beamwidth formatted via
Beacon.format_mw/1 so no more "2.5e3" scientific notation or "280.0".
format_mw/1 hoisted onto the schema so index and show share it.
- About page no longer uses prose classes (this project doesn't load
@tailwindcss/typography). Headings, lists, and paragraphs now use
explicit utility classes so they render as intended.
Beacons can now record a directional bearing ("omni" or 0-360 degrees)
and a beamwidth in degrees. The keying list grows from {on_off, fsk}
to include FM Voice, WSPR, and the full Q65A/B/C/D/E × 15/30/60/120
family, grouped via optgroups in the submission form.
- /map now centers on the visitor's Cloudflare geolocation when the
cf-iplatitude/cf-iplongitude headers are present, falling back to DFW.
Initial HRRR score bounds track the chosen center.
- Added /about link to the /map side navigation.
- Renamed "Propagation Map" label to "Propagation Prediction Map" in
the /map page title, sidebars, and the /weather back-link.
- Populated /about with mission, approach, stack, roadmap, and a live
stat grid fed from DB counts (estimates via pg_class.reltuples for
the multi-million-row tables).
- Anonymous users can submit beacons (held pending admin approval)
- Added notes field to beacons (textarea on form, shown on detail page)
- Added Beacons link to /map sidebar nav (mobile + desktop),
removed stale Rover Planner link
- Moved /backfill to /admin/backfill under the admin live_session
- Beacon detail map zooms in two extra levels after fitBounds
The Era5FetchWorker now declares an Oban unique constraint on
{lat, lon, valid_time} for any job in available/scheduled/executing/
retryable, so two backfill runs targeting the same contact grid point
can no longer spawn parallel CDS requests for the same hour.
Because Oban OSS insert_all doesn't honor unique, ERA5 jobs are now
routed through Oban.insert/1 from ContactWeatherEnqueueWorker and the
era5_backfill mix task. Other worker types still use insert_all.
Non-admin users can now submit beacons but they are held in an
unapproved state until an admin approves them. Only approved beacons
appear in the public list; pending submissions are shown in a separate
admin-only section on /beacons with Approve and Delete actions. The
show page surfaces a pending badge and an admin-only Approve button
when viewing an unapproved beacon.
Also formats EIRP (mW) on the index page without scientific notation.
Replace the idealised concentric-circle range rings with a realistic
per-HRRR-grid-cell reception map. For every 0.125° grid point within
the band's exceptional range, the estimator computes great-circle
distance, FSPL + atmospheric loss, and applies a cell-specific score
adjustment of (50 - score) * 0.3 dB — score 100 gives a 15 dB ducting
boost, score 0 a 15 dB penalty. Cells below the -145 dBm detection
floor are dropped.
The beacon map hook now renders each surviving cell as a 0.125°
filled rectangle with a tooltip showing tier, Rx dBm, distance, and
HRRR score, so the coverage footprint bulges where ducting conditions
are good and cuts off where they aren't, instead of being a perfect
circle. Falls back to score 50 for cells that don't have HRRR data
yet, so the plot is always useful.
Also fixes the prior all-grey-tiles regression by restoring an
explicit setView() at map creation and adding a post-mount
invalidateSize() for when the map is placed inside a flex container.
The power_mw field represents the beacon's effective radiated power,
not just transmitter output. Relabel it as "TX power (EIRP)" on the
form and detail list, "EIRP (mW)" in the index, and drop the now-
meaningless tx_gain_dbi constant in RangeEstimate since the stored
value already includes antenna gain.
- Add on_the_air boolean to beacons (default true); surfaced as a
checkbox on the form, a badge on the index, and in the detail list.
- Render a Leaflet map on the beacon show page with a marker at the
beacon's lat/lon tooltipped with callsign + frequency. Marker is
green when on air, gray when off.
- Compute and draw a reception-range estimate as concentric signal-
strength rings. New Microwaveprop.Beacons.RangeEstimate solves a
link budget (FSPL + O2/H2O absorption from BandConfig) at five RX
thresholds (-100 to -145 dBm), then scales by 0.5 + score/100 from
the latest Propagation.point_detail at the beacon's grid square, so
current HRRR conditions shift the rings in or out.
- Re-enable the hourly PropagationGridWorker cron and freshness
monitor in dev.exs so dev actually has HRRR-backed scores to feed
the new estimator.
- Rename beacons.height_m to height_ft; migration converts existing
values (m * 3.28084). Form/list/show labels updated.
- Beacon changeset now fills lat/lon from the grid when they're blank
(previously only the reverse worked). Lat/lon and grid inputs are no
longer marked required in the form — enter one side and the other
populates on blur via phx-change.
- Rename beacons.power_watts to power_mw (migration multiplies existing
values by 1000); form/list/show all relabeled to "Power (mW)"
- Fix Add-monitor button alignment on /users/settings by rendering the
label above and putting the input and button in a plain flex row so
the input wrapper margin no longer offsets the button
- Extend the settings page re-auth window from 10 minutes to 24 hours
- Move controls (band selector, grid toggle, nav links) to a docked
right sidebar on desktop, keep floating overlay on mobile
- Point detail panel floats over the map bottom-left instead of inside
the narrow sidebar
- Add collapse/expand toggle for the sidebar
- Add auth links (login/logout/settings) to sidebar
- Wrap public live routes in live_session with UserAuth on_mount
- Use daisyUI menu lists for sidebar navigation
Beacons:
- Scaffolded with phx.gen.live then reworked so reads are public
and mutations go through a live_session gated by the new
:require_admin on_mount hook in UserAuth
- Beacon schema stores frequency (MHz), callsign, grid, lat/lon,
power (W), and height above ground (m); grid auto-derives from
lat/lon when left blank via Maidenhead.from_latlon
- Adds Maidenhead.from_latlon/3 so we can compute grids locally
instead of hitting an external API
Users admin page:
- /users and /users/:id/edit (admin-only) for listing, editing
(callsign/name/email/is_admin), and deleting other users
- Adds Accounts.list_users, admin_update_user, delete_user, and
a dedicated admin_changeset on the User schema
- Nav gains a "Users" link for admins and a "Beacons" link for
everyone
Adds a boolean is_admin column (default false) and has the
registration changeset auto-set it to true when the email matches
graham@mcintire.me (case-insensitive). The migration also backfills
the flag for an existing row with that email.
Users can now register beacon monitors on the settings page. Each
monitor gets a unique random token the remote program will use to
authenticate its reports. Name is the only user-supplied field for
now; more will be added as the monitor protocol is defined.
Also adds :gen_smtp to deps. Swoosh's SMTP adapter depends on
:mimemail which lives in that package, and production was 500'ing
when trying to send confirmation emails without it.
- Register/Log in (or callsign/Settings/Log out) now live next to
the Map/Path/Rover links in the main header instead of a separate
top menu bar
- Add on_mount in UserAuth to assign current_scope on LiveView mount,
and pass current_scope through to Layouts.app from every LiveView
- Drop the old top <ul> from root.html.heex
- Password minimum lowered from 12 to 8 characters
Generated Accounts context, User schema, and controllers via
phx.gen.auth. Adapted it for password-only login with required
email confirmation:
- Users have callsign (unique, uppercased), name, email, password
- Registration form fields: callsign, name, email, password, confirm
- Magic-link login path removed; login is email + password only
- After register, a confirmation email is sent and login is blocked
until the account is confirmed via the token URL
- Confirmation link logs the user in on first use
- SMTP2GO configured as the outgoing mailer in k8s prod
Extract shared Maidenhead grid overlay into maidenhead_grid.js so both
the main map and rover planner use the same implementation. Wire up the
toggle_grid event and checkbox on the rover page matching the main map.
New BandConfig entries for 902, 1296, 2304, 3456, 5760 MHz:
- All beneficial humidity effect (like 10 GHz)
- Near-zero gaseous absorption and rain attenuation
- Ranges: 902 MHz typical 400 km, 5760 MHz typical 220 km
- Same seasonal curves as 10 GHz (ducting-driven)
BandConfig.band_options/0 generates dropdown options from configs.
All pages (path, rover, submit) use centralized band_options instead
of hardcoded lists. Map page already used BandConfig.all_bands().
10 GHz remains the default on all pages.
- Toggle button for Maidenhead grid overlay (on by default)
- Coverage candidates now at 0.25° resolution (~28 km) instead of
2°×1° Maidenhead grids, matching HRRR propagation grid density
- Coverage rectangles render as 0.25° cells for finer detail
- Grid overlay is separate from coverage coloring
