A new version of the radar software toolkit (RST) has been released by the Data Analysis Working Group and can be found on the working group's github repository as version 4.1. Some major changes come with this new version including the deprecation of the '-new' flag in favor of using '-old' for data formats prior to 20060701 (*.dat, *.fit, etc.). The '-new' flag will no longer work and may break processing if used, so please update any external processing code.

In addition, RST 4.1 comes with major revisions to the gridding and mapping software. This means RST 4.1 will no longer produce the grdex and mapex files that are found on the VT-SuperDARN website. New files produced with the RST 4.1 code will be called grid2 and map2. These new files retain much of the same format as grdex and mapex files but are being separated to distinguish between the major revisions in the gridding and mapping software. RST 4.1 does maintain backwards compatibility so grdex and mapex files should be read and plotted with the current code.

Lastly, RST 4.1 introduces fitacf 3.0 as an experimental option of processing rawacf files into fitacf files. The default for this processing remains with fitacf 2.5, but users have the option to process what we at Virginia Tech are calling fitacf3 files with the command 'make_fit -fitacf-version 3.0'.

For now, grdex and mapex files will be produced to the end of 2017. Grid2 and map2 files will be produced starting with the beginning of 2017, but could be extended further back in time as necessary. Also, starting with the beginning of Dec. 2017, fitacf3 files will be produced in addition to fitacf (v2.5) files. Some of the web tools found on this website have been updated to plot this data. For the latest on what is available in the VT database, please refer to the data inventory page.