Summary

Virtual Visit: Disdrometer data had incorrect time stamp

Details

Personnel: Douglas Alden, Hart Wanetick

We noticed that disdrometer plots were not being updated but data was being transferred to and processed on skyriver.  The system was recently powered back up and the disdrometer script started before the Raspberry Pi updated its system clock via NTP.  The disdrometer clock is set by the python script when the script starts.

now = time.gmtime()
# Set real time clock of the OTT Parsivel2
commandStr = time.strftime('CS/U/%d.%m.%Y %H:%M:%S\r\n', now)
Sent = ser.write(commandStr.encode("utf-8"))

Need to add a real-time clock to the system or add some check in bash script to confirm clock is updated before running the python script. The command timedatectl can be used to confirm that the clock is synchronized.

disdro@hodgdonmdw:~ $ sudo timedatectl status
Local time: Tue 2025-04-01 16:31:54 UTC
Universal time: Tue 2025-04-01 16:31:54 UTC
RTC time: n/a
Time zone: Etc/UTC (UTC, +0000)
System clock synchronized: yes
NTP service: active
RTC in local TZ: no

Rebooting the Raspberry Pi fixed the timestamp issue.