MSC Introductory Weather Radar Course

Here is my feedback until now.

Pre-study material: Yes, there are a lot, but not too much. Before this course started, my knowledge and general view over radar, both mechanics and measurements, could be put at a little place. So, I have been in need of all the pre-study material to form the basis for my participation in the online lectures. Specificially I enjoyed, that the pre-study material also included a short chapter on the historical development of radars. Then the exercises - it is not very functional with the "filling in words" exercises, that are still left. Those demand you choosing the right number of words and put them in the right order without any spelling/typing errors. It would be much better, if all exercises are changed to multiple choice. Very early in my reading I missed an "opposite glossary" too - one with all the used abbreviations in alphabetically order and the full word lying behind. Therefore from page one I started making my own - and still do - so it contains abbreviations used both in the pre-study material and the online lectures. If you want, I will gladly hand it over to you, when the course has finished.

Regarding the online lectures: So far, I think the lectures have been very good. Dense? Yes! Though I would not miss any of it. The large number of slides, I think to some part can be explained with a lot of explaining figures and example, but those are very crucial and can not be left out. One always encounters subjects that are more difficult to understand than others, but on average I think the lectures have hit a suitable level of difficulty. Though, I still need to go through the lectures again at my own pace - therefore it is a pity that the recordings have caused so much trouble with the talk and the slides being out of phase. Right now it is possible for me to follow the recordings shifting slides myself. Even though, I would still appreciate if you can have it phased together. That will make it easier to jump into a recording months/years from now. The latter I hope will still be an opportunity, which I can say for sure, that I will make use of (as even then everything will still not be stored in my memory)!

Despite all the material (pre-study and lectures) I won´t go that far yet, to say that I understand everything, or at least that everything is basic knowledge for me know. Now and then, questions on details show up, both from the pre-study material and the online lectures. The latter because often the online lectures have to "settle" first. At this point I would therefore like to thank the instructors for being kind to answer questions long time after their lectures.

So my overall impression: A great and good planned course!

Hi Dave,

firstly i'd just like to say great job! I think you've made the course better! In fact I had meetings with Jim Abraham and Michael Manore yesterday and told them the same thing! Maybe you'll get a pay rise ;) They are over here to look at areas of collaboration and we talked alot about training - all kinds of stuff. They were pretty interested! (But I digress).

The rationale behind the pre-reading was always to give people the option to cover all the bases so there was always a lot of material there. Jaakko Karpenen came to BMTC for 3 months in 2008 to put the first cut of that together for the EumetCAL course - but you guys have cleaned it up and taken it further. I take Birgette's point about the assessments - maybe multiple choice will be more workable.

I havent sat in every lecture - just about all and after Dave Patrck''s first lecture on non-meteorological stuff I asked Harald what his impression was of the effectiveness of the presentations. We both came to the agreement that they we very good - to the point where i would not have gotten anymore from them if i had been there face to face. The webinar thing works great live and i felt "connected" with the session. Please let Dave Patrick now that he does a great job - and has the talent to "bring the material to life".

I know there is a face to face component r.e the course but one thing that i tried to do in the European course was embed some small interactive "exercises" in the presentatations as well. You could even leave the participants with a little exercise and come back to review it in the next session - that might be a bit tricky if the same person isnt on consecutively.

Wish I could get to the f2f component!

cheers and again well done Dave - Roger

Hi Dave,

I could not agree more with the others that the course goes really well so far.

The pre-study modules cover a lot of basic radar materials which really help us to review and refresh our knowledge. Some topics I went through a few times, like the radar bands, radar beam … I also like this forum, a good idea to keep us to open and communicate to each other easily.

I had downloaded Phi’s talk and play it in my computer and found there were o lot of slides have associated comments which help to understand his presentation well. . I can easily follow his extra slides which been hided. Since we have this out of phase problem in the recording, I think it would be a good idea if other presenters also can include some comments into some important slides

Regards to the material of each talk, I would say they were all dense (I understand each presenter tired to feed us as mush as they can). But the posted recordings and presentations allow us to review them later.

Thanks a lot for the excellent job!

Weiqing

Thank you all for your kind comments. I have been wanting to write up some of my radar notes for a long time but never got the opportunity until now. But that's another story that goes back 20 years...

If I may suggest... if you play the Powerpoint on a two headed monitor and set up the Powerpoint to "play" on one screen while the source PPT is still displayed on the other, you can "click" the PPT and read the comments at the same time. That was my intent when I set it up. It was designed to entertain and build the content of the slide a click at a time while the text in the "Notes" page attempted to describe the content. I stayed away from my more flamboyant Powerpoint techniques as it still had to be transported over the Web. There are nil sound effects and videos incorporated in the PPT - not a lot of "shock an awe" that I enjoy so much.

Both the Doppler and Cold Front Powerpoints are set up the same way. Have fun with them and thank you for your very kind and supportive reviews.

Hi Dave,

I have to admit that I really like this course and you've done a great job. The pre-study material was a very good review of what I've learned in the past and I think that a refresher like this is always welcomed.

I couldn't agree more with Natalie about Comet, Meted and Webinar. It is very cool!

About the presentation, it would be fantastic to have access to powerpoints before the online lectures. Maybe one or two days before.

The online lectures are great. Like others said before me, there are some lectures that had enough material for 2 or 3 hours and I'm talking most about Phil's presentation. Like I said to him, I had a hard time following the end of his lecture. I didn't have time yet to look again at his powerpoint but I'm sure I will have a great time! I'm doing it this afternoon by the way. I'm quite happy to know that Phil will be there for the residence course to re-explain me these advections/clockwise/veering/backing things again!

Like Weiqing said, the out of phase problem of the recordings make it hard (almost impossible) to follow. I don't know if you (Dave) can do something about it.

I like to thank Dave and his team for this great course. I hope there will be many more to come. I look forward to work on the french version!!!

Julie

This all sounds like very positive feedback - Dave deserves a lot of credit - as do you, the participants - it takes both sides to make a successful course. The MSC/COMET Winter Weather Course is a similar project.

Please forgive me. I knowingly included a lot of material in the Doppler presentation. I used the opportunity to get a lot of things that I have done for years, out into the greater meteorological world before I retire. I didn't expect to get to it all and even had planned a "go the the end" link on the slide I expected to end on. It's not that complicated after one thinks about it for a while. That being said, the information is all there and ready to be played. As I mentioned earlier, it is best to use a two headed monitor - play the PPT on one and read the "comments" in the notes page on the other.

I see that there have been a few requests to make the presentations available early. My Cold Fronts presentation is already there. I have done the same thing with this material as I did with Doppler. I do hope that you enjoy it. I have similar presentations on warm fronts and the other conveyor belts. Together, they make up the Radar Palette. It has taken years to create these PowerPoints... no kidding :>) My goal is to have the Radar Palette together with the Satellite Palette, part of the Remote Sensing Family, alive and well and living at or on COMET :>)