Network Operations Transitions to "Antelope" at the Nevada Seismological Laboratory

Abstract

Seismological data collectors face a challenge any time they want or need to acquire new data or use data in new ways. The inevitable march of technology also provides new opportunities to get more and better data. Changing from familiar data collection and processing techniques to new ones is a challenge in every case, but no more so than when the organization operates a permanent seismic network whose products must continue through the transition without break and with some degree of uniformity and quality. The Electronic Seismologist (ES) has been known to participate in such transitions in the past. Having orchestrated, assisted with, or just gone along with about half a dozen such transitions in the past 30+ years, he is aware that it is not an activity for the faint of heart. A recent such transition, watched with interest by the ES, took place at the University of Nevada at Reno. There, not only were the computer hardware and software changed, but two fairly independent networks were combined into one, and the waveform archiving policy was greatly expanded. Having a soft spot in his heart for Nevada earthquakes in general and the UNR in particular (the ES helped to install the first analog telemetry station as a student there many moons ago), the ES is happy to host a guest column by David von Seggern, Glenn Biasi, and Ken Smith. These seismologists spearheaded and seem to have survived this transition with flying colors. Faced with operating two parts of their network independently because of incompatible legacy software, Y2K fears, and a need to improve efficiency, there appeared to be no evolutionary solution, and a major change was needed. It would seem that adopting the Antelope system (see the ES columns on this system in SRL Vol. 70, numbers 2 …