A GOES--Reporting Waverider Buoy

A NEW INSTRUMENT FOR MEASURING AND REPORTING OCEAN WIND WAVES HAS BEEN CONSTRUCTED, TESTED AT SEA, AND PUT TO USE IN FIELD STUDIES OF THE TRANSFER FUNCTION OF OPERATIONAL WAVE MEASURING SYSTEMS ON LARGE DATA BUOYS. THE PROTOTYPE WRANSAC WAS INTEGRATED FROM AN EXISTING MICRO-COMPUTER, A SATELLITE RADIO TRANSMITTER, AND A WAVERIDER. TWENTY MINUTES OF WAVE DATA ARE PROCESSED AND PRODUCE HOURLY REPORTS OF MEAN WAVE HEIGHT, MAXIMUM CREST, MINIMUM TROUGH, AND 150 LAGS OF THE AUTOCORRELATION FUNCTION. THE INTERNATIONAL NETWORK OF SYNCHRONOUS METEOROLOGICAL SATELLITES PROVIDES A RELAY CAPABILITY PERMITTING WRANSAC TO BE USED ALMOST ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD OCEAN. THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE WRANSAC PROTOTYPE IS DESCRIBED AND DATA FROM THE DECEMBER 1977 DEPLOYMENT IS PRESENTED.