Data are currently being received from a Vertical Temperature Profile Radiometer (VTPR) aboard the NOAA 2 spacecraft to produce operational atmospheric soundings of temperature and humidity on a global scale. This report describes the VTPR instrument, its calibration, the procedure to obtain "clear radiances" from cloud-contaminated radiance measurements, retrieval techniques used to obtain temperature and humidity profiles from "clear radiances", the quality checks performed on the profiles, and the various forms in which data are available to potential users.