Re: [Xastir] Xastir and Ultimeter weather station

[Rick Green]

On Wed, 23 Jan 2008, Rick Green wrote:

I don't remember this being a problem when I first set it up, but a week or 
so ago, I noticed clearly bogus values (~40.06 inches hg!) showing up 
regularly in the barometric pressure value on the 'own weather data' panel 
and in the transmitted values.  I have no idea where this is coming from!


 Apparently a non-repeatable anomaly.  When I restarted xastir after 
stopping it to run minicom and gather the data shapshot, it's now 
reporting blanks in the baro pressure field as it should.


--
Rick Green

"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little
temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
  -Benjamin Franklin

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Re: [Xastir] Xastir and Ultimeter weather station

[Rick Green]

Here's what the Peet bros FAQ has to say about the ultimeter data format:

(quoting from http://www.peetbros.com/shop/custom.aspx?recid=5#Q6)

ULTIMETER MODELS 2000, 800 & 100 SERIAL DATA SPECIFICATIONS
(see above for ULTIMETER II Serial Data Specifications)
GENERAL

* 2400 baud, 8 data bits, 1 stop bit, no parity.
* ASCII hex digits (0 - F).
* All fields are 4 bytes except 2 bytes where indicated in the 
complete record mode.

* Most significant digit first.

NOTES:
1. IGNORE THE FIRST TWO DIGITS OF WIND DIRECTION. THESE DIGITS ARE 
NORMALLY 00, BUT IF A DIRECTION CALIBRATION NUMBER HAS BEEN ENTERED, THEY 
MAY BE FF.
2. RAIN GAUGES THAT MEASURE IN INCREMENTS OF 0.1 MM ARE FULLY SUPPORTED ON 
THE ULTIMETER LIQUID CRYSTAL DISPLAY. ANY PROGRAM OR DEVICE USING THE 
SERIAL DATA OUTPUT MUST UNDERSTAND THAT THE DATA IS IN 0.1 MM INCREMENTS. 
SERIAL OUTPUT FOR ALL OTHER RAIN GAUGE SELECTIONS IS REPORTED IN 
INCREMENTS OF 0.01 INCHES.


* Data Logging Mode (Default Output Mode) Press CLEAR + WIND SPEED for 
3 seconds.
  While in this mode, records are sent out continuously at up to about 
90 per minute. The total record size is 40 hex digits + header, carriage 
return and line feed.


/snip/

DATA LOGGING MODE - RECORD STRUCTURE

*
  Header = !!
*
  Data Fields
  o 1. Wind Speed (0.1 kph)
  o 2. Wind Direction (0-255)
  o 3. Outdoor Temp (0.1 deg F)
  o 4. Rain* Long Term Total (0.01 inches)
  o 5. Barometer (0.1 mbar)
  o 6. Indoor Temp (0.1 deg F)
  o 7. Outdoor Humidity (0.1%)
  o 8. Indoor Humidity (0.1%)
  o 9. Date (day of year)
  o 10. Time (minute of day)
  o 11. Today's Rain Total (0.01 inches)*
  o 12. 1 Minute Wind Speed Average (0.1kph)*
*
  Carriage Return & Line Feed

*Some instruments may not include field 12, some may not include 11 or 12. 
Please contact Peet Bros. if this presents any problem.
Total size: 40, 44 or 48 characters (hex digits) + header, carriage return 
and line feed.


(end of quote from Peet Bros FAQ)

Last year at Dayton, I bought a Peet Bros U100 as a 'factory refurbished' 
unit.  When I got it home and opened it up, the box contained a control 
unit marked 'Ultimeter 500', which appears to be essentially a U100 with 
the addition of a built-in indoor temp sensor.  It appears to output a 
datastream compatible with the U100, U800, U2000 spec above.  Here's a 
sample:


!!00BD00D70215001602FF
!!00BD00D70215001602FF
!!00BD00D70215001602FF
!!00BD00D70215001602FF
!!00BD00D70215001602FF

So, mapping this against the spec from the FAQ, I get:

!! - Header indicating 'data logging mode'
  o 1. Wind Speed (0.1 kph)
00BD  o 2. Wind Direction (0-255)
( I sent Curt personally yesterday a note documenting what I
believe is a bug in the implementation of Note 1 on this field.)
00D7  o 3. Outdoor Temp (0.1 deg F)
  o 4. Rain* Long Term Total (0.01 inches)
  o 5. Barometer (0.1 mbar)
0215  o 6. Indoor Temp (0.1 deg F)
  o 7. Outdoor Humidity (0.1%)
  o 8. Indoor Humidity (0.1%)
0016  o 9. Date (day of year)
02FF  o 10. Time (minute of day)
  o 11. Today's Rain Total (0.01 inches)*
  o 12. 1 Minute Wind Speed Average (0.1kph)*

I have no rain, barometer, or humidity sensors.  As we can see, the 
ultimeter is reporting '' which is a pretty clear missing data 
indication for the baro and humidity values, but its reporting the 
misleading '' for the absent rain values.


I don't remember this being a problem when I first set it up, but a week 
or so ago, I noticed clearly bogus values (~40.06 inches hg!) showing up 
regularly in the barometric pressure value on the 'own weather data' panel 
and in the transmitted values.  I have no idea where this is coming from!


--
Rick Green, N8BJX

"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little
temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
  -Benjamin Franklin

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Re: [Xastir] Xastir and Ultimeter weather station

[Alex Carver]

--- Richard Polivka <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

> I agree on the -9 selection since any other real
> value is possibly correct.
> 
> Gerry Creager <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> too! And you just raised a key one.  We should have
> a standard value for 
> *Missing Data* such as, -9 (which is, in fact,
> one such well 
> recognized value in the meteorological community).

I see one sticky wicket for that in the consumer
equipment (now that I got to see the data format). 
Some of the units send unsigned integers for certain
values in their serial data stream.  They're also
using fixed width fields in the data stream.

For example, if the wind vane broke or didn't exist,
what value do you send for wind direction?  The
Ultimeter uses 0-F to send 16 directions of wind.  The
wind speed is encoded in two hex digits (no mention of
signed or unsigned here, though) so what do you send
there?  A report of 00 is valid as is 8A (140MPH not
often, but it might be valid in a hurricane).

If it's perhaps a simple firmware change that can be
installed in all existing units, maybe the no sensor
value should be an overrange.  Wind speed sensor
missing would be FF (unless there are 255 MPH winds
somewhere).

It looks like the temperature sensors might be get
away with a negative underrange, though, since they
have to transmit negative temperatures.  I can't tell
how they do it, though (whether signed integers or
some offset).




  

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Re: [Xastir] Xastir and Ultimeter weather station

[Rick Green]

Gerry Creager <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: Matt Werner wrote:

I have a 2000 but currently have the wind sensor disconnected (it's
under repair).

It would be nice to have the ability to tell xastir which sensors to
report and which to ignore.  Peet's data structure naturally doesn't
change it's format when the sensors are unplugged, it just reports no
data for them.


Having spent a fair bit of time w/ Davis yesterday getting them to
update their windows s/w for APRS-WX/CWOP... if I can find Peet at the
American Meteorological Society meeting, I've some requests for them,
too! And you just raised a key one.  We should have a standard value for
*Missing Data* such as, -9 (which is, in fact, one such well
recognized value in the meteorological community).


The difference between 0 and 'no data' is significant but xastir
doesn't recognize it.



The code currently appears to expect a string of dashes '--' in fields to 
indicate missing data.  Here's a snippet from wx.c:


// 006B 00 58
// 00A4 00 46 01FF 380E 2755 02C1 03E8  0052 04D70001 007BM
// ^   ^  ^^^ ^  ^
// 0   6  812   1624 40
/* wind speed */
if (data[0] != '-') { // '-' signifies invalid data
substr(temp_data1,(char *)data,4);

...but it doesn't seem to be uniformly implemented, and the ultimeter 
outputs zeroes for many missing sensors.


--
Rick Green, N8BJX

"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little
temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
  -Benjamin Franklin

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Re: [Xastir] Xastir and Ultimeter weather station

[Richard Polivka]

Gerry,

I agree on the -9 selection since any other real value is possibly correct.

This is the simple way to go. 

73 from 807,

Richard, N6NKO


Gerry Creager <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: Matt Werner wrote:
> I have a 2000 but currently have the wind sensor disconnected (it's
> under repair).
> 
> It would be nice to have the ability to tell xastir which sensors to
> report and which to ignore.  Peet's data structure naturally doesn't
> change it's format when the sensors are unplugged, it just reports no
> data for them.

Having spent a fair bit of time w/ Davis yesterday getting them to 
update their windows s/w for APRS-WX/CWOP... if I can find Peet at the 
American Meteorological Society meeting, I've some requests for them, 
too! And you just raised a key one.  We should have a standard value for 
*Missing Data* such as, -9 (which is, in fact, one such well 
recognized value in the meteorological community).

> The difference between 0 and 'no data' is significant but xastir
> doesn't recognize it.

Nor do a lot of other consumer-grade, or APRS-WX, programs.  It's more 
an oversight, I think, than a mistake.  However, thanks for pointing it out.

> On Jan 22, 2008 11:08 AM, Curt, WE7U  wrote:
>> On Sun, 20 Jan 2008, Rick Green wrote:
>>
>>> I'm running a Peet Ultimeter 500, which seems to output the same data
>>> structures as the ultimeter 2000, but with all the 'missing' sensors
>>> zeroed out.  I wish there was a way I could configure xastir to ignore
>>> some fields, since it's reporting that it never rains here, rather than
>>> simply not reporting rain as it should.  And I don't have a baro sensor,
>>> but it's reporting some strange bogus values...
>> Talk to us some more about this.  I don't know much about the Peet
>> series.  We could do something about the above problem.
>>
>>
>>> I haven't found anything in the code that treats a 'networked' weather
>>> station any differently than a serial-connected one, so I'm guessing
>>> that the 'networked' wx station is simply a serial wx station plugged into
>>> a 'serial server' or a 'terminal server', so that if you were to telnet to
>>> the server port, you'd see the same data stream as if you ran minicom on
>>> the serial-connected wx station.
>> Nope.  Unfortunately.  In this case it connects to the One Wire
>> Weather daemon or the wx200d daemon only.
-- 
Gerry Creager -- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Texas Mesonet -- AATLT, Texas A&M University
Cell: 979.229.5301 Office: 979.862.3982 FAX: 979.862.3983
Office: 1700 Research Parkway Ste 160, TAMU, College Station, TX 77843

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Re: [Xastir] Xastir and Ultimeter weather station

[Gerry Creager]

Matt Werner wrote:

I have a 2000 but currently have the wind sensor disconnected (it's
under repair).

It would be nice to have the ability to tell xastir which sensors to
report and which to ignore.  Peet's data structure naturally doesn't
change it's format when the sensors are unplugged, it just reports no
data for them.


Having spent a fair bit of time w/ Davis yesterday getting them to 
update their windows s/w for APRS-WX/CWOP... if I can find Peet at the 
American Meteorological Society meeting, I've some requests for them, 
too! And you just raised a key one.  We should have a standard value for 
*Missing Data* such as, -9 (which is, in fact, one such well 
recognized value in the meteorological community).



The difference between 0 and 'no data' is significant but xastir
doesn't recognize it.


Nor do a lot of other consumer-grade, or APRS-WX, programs.  It's more 
an oversight, I think, than a mistake.  However, thanks for pointing it out.



On Jan 22, 2008 11:08 AM, Curt, WE7U <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

On Sun, 20 Jan 2008, Rick Green wrote:


I'm running a Peet Ultimeter 500, which seems to output the same data
structures as the ultimeter 2000, but with all the 'missing' sensors
zeroed out.  I wish there was a way I could configure xastir to ignore
some fields, since it's reporting that it never rains here, rather than
simply not reporting rain as it should.  And I don't have a baro sensor,
but it's reporting some strange bogus values...

Talk to us some more about this.  I don't know much about the Peet
series.  We could do something about the above problem.



I haven't found anything in the code that treats a 'networked' weather
station any differently than a serial-connected one, so I'm guessing
that the 'networked' wx station is simply a serial wx station plugged into
a 'serial server' or a 'terminal server', so that if you were to telnet to
the server port, you'd see the same data stream as if you ran minicom on
the serial-connected wx station.

Nope.  Unfortunately.  In this case it connects to the One Wire
Weather daemon or the wx200d daemon only.

--
Gerry Creager -- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Texas Mesonet -- AATLT, Texas A&M University
Cell: 979.229.5301 Office: 979.862.3982 FAX: 979.862.3983
Office: 1700 Research Parkway Ste 160, TAMU, College Station, TX 77843

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Re: [Xastir] Xastir and Ultimeter weather station

[Curt, WE7U]

On Tue, 22 Jan 2008, Alex Carver wrote:

> Crazily enough, I have Xastir running on a Debian
> machine in my living room sucking data from a TNC in
> my office connected to a WinXP machine.  Socat sits
> quietly in the background running on a minimized
> Cygwin terminal.

It's weird too connecting Xastir to an AGWPE instance across the
country, which I did for debugging purposes a few times.  Having an
RF presence in another state thousands of miles away is just
strange.

Neat setup you have there!

--
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  "Lotto:  A tax on people who are bad at math." -- unknown
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Re: [Xastir] Xastir and Ultimeter weather station

[Alex Carver]

>   Darn.  How difficult would it be to implement?  I
> was looking at the 
> ser2net package running under openwrt on an Asus
> WL-500gP 'appliance' to 
> better locate my wind and temp sensors.  I've found
> some commercial 
> solutions (B&B Electronics) which include a driver
> to implement a 'virtual 
> serial port' locally, but that's more $$$ and
> closed, so I don't want to 
> go there.

The program socat works pretty well for remote serial
over network connections.  The only sticky wicket I've
come across with it is the apparent inability to set
serial port speeds on the server side (where the
physical port is actually located).  Openwrt should be
able to fix that with regular ioctl() calls through
something like setserial.  Socat is supposed to be
able to do this, but on my systems it doesn't work.  I
have to use something else to set the port up first
then let socat latch onto the port.  After that it
works just fine.

Crazily enough, I have Xastir running on a Debian
machine in my living room sucking data from a TNC in
my office connected to a WinXP machine.  Socat sits
quietly in the background running on a minimized
Cygwin terminal.


  

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Re: [Xastir] Xastir and Ultimeter weather station

[Curt, WE7U]

On Tue, 22 Jan 2008, Curt, WE7U wrote:

> You could take a look at the Xastir FAQ:  There are some packages
> mentioned there for doing serial->net->serial port stuff on Linux.

By that I mean the FAQ file distributed with Xastir, not the one on
the web site.  The distributed file is likely to be more up-to-date.

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Re: [Xastir] Xastir and Ultimeter weather station

[Curt, WE7U]

On Tue, 22 Jan 2008, Rick Green wrote:

>I'll pull together some data dumps of the U500 datastream, but probably
> not until tomorrow evening...

I'm not in a hurry.  I'm very busy right now so won't get to it for
some time.  If another developer or user wants to look at it and
create patches, I'll be happy to look at them and try to incorporate
them into the main sources.


>When I first implemented it, I discovered an off-by-two error in the
> parsing of, I think, the wind direction(?)  I corrected the source
> locally, recompiled and tested it here, and posted the diff to the list,
> but I never saw a response that a developer had picked it up and committed
> the change.  Do you remember seeing that, or should I also search my
> sent-mail to resurrect that one?

Sorry, my memory is like a sieve these days, particularly for
anything from e-mail.  I get way too much of it.


>   Darn.  How difficult would it be to implement?  I was looking at the
> ser2net package running under openwrt on an Asus WL-500gP 'appliance' to
> better locate my wind and temp sensors.  I've found some commercial
> solutions (B&B Electronics) which include a driver to implement a 'virtual
> serial port' locally, but that's more $$$ and closed, so I don't want to
> go there.

You could take a look at the Xastir FAQ:  There are some packages
mentioned there for doing serial->net->serial port stuff on Linux.

--
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Re: [Xastir] Xastir and Ultimeter weather station

[Rick Green]

On Tue, 22 Jan 2008, Curt, WE7U wrote:


On Sun, 20 Jan 2008, Rick Green wrote:


I'm running a Peet Ultimeter 500, which seems to output the same data
structures as the ultimeter 2000, but with all the 'missing' sensors
zeroed out.  I wish there was a way I could configure xastir to ignore
some fields, since it's reporting that it never rains here, rather than
simply not reporting rain as it should.  And I don't have a baro sensor,
but it's reporting some strange bogus values...


Talk to us some more about this.  I don't know much about the Peet
series.  We could do something about the above problem.

  I'll pull together some data dumps of the U500 datastream, but probably 
not until tomorrow evening...
  When I first implemented it, I discovered an off-by-two error in the 
parsing of, I think, the wind direction(?)  I corrected the source 
locally, recompiled and tested it here, and posted the diff to the list, 
but I never saw a response that a developer had picked it up and committed 
the change.  Do you remember seeing that, or should I also search my 
sent-mail to resurrect that one?





I haven't found anything in the code that treats a 'networked' weather
station any differently than a serial-connected one, so I'm guessing
that the 'networked' wx station is simply a serial wx station plugged into
a 'serial server' or a 'terminal server', so that if you were to telnet to
the server port, you'd see the same data stream as if you ran minicom on
the serial-connected wx station.


Nope.  Unfortunately.  In this case it connects to the One Wire
Weather daemon or the wx200d daemon only.

 Darn.  How difficult would it be to implement?  I was looking at the 
ser2net package running under openwrt on an Asus WL-500gP 'appliance' to 
better locate my wind and temp sensors.  I've found some commercial 
solutions (B&B Electronics) which include a driver to implement a 'virtual 
serial port' locally, but that's more $$$ and closed, so I don't want to 
go there.


--
Rick Green, N8BJX

"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little
temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
  -Benjamin Franklin

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Re: [Xastir] Xastir and Ultimeter weather station

[Matt Werner]

I have a 2000 but currently have the wind sensor disconnected (it's
under repair).

It would be nice to have the ability to tell xastir which sensors to
report and which to ignore.  Peet's data structure naturally doesn't
change it's format when the sensors are unplugged, it just reports no
data for them.

The difference between 0 and 'no data' is significant but xastir
doesn't recognize it.

On Jan 22, 2008 11:08 AM, Curt, WE7U <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> On Sun, 20 Jan 2008, Rick Green wrote:
>
> > I'm running a Peet Ultimeter 500, which seems to output the same data
> > structures as the ultimeter 2000, but with all the 'missing' sensors
> > zeroed out.  I wish there was a way I could configure xastir to ignore
> > some fields, since it's reporting that it never rains here, rather than
> > simply not reporting rain as it should.  And I don't have a baro sensor,
> > but it's reporting some strange bogus values...
>
> Talk to us some more about this.  I don't know much about the Peet
> series.  We could do something about the above problem.
>
>
> > I haven't found anything in the code that treats a 'networked' weather
> > station any differently than a serial-connected one, so I'm guessing
> > that the 'networked' wx station is simply a serial wx station plugged into
> > a 'serial server' or a 'terminal server', so that if you were to telnet to
> > the server port, you'd see the same data stream as if you ran minicom on
> > the serial-connected wx station.
>
> Nope.  Unfortunately.  In this case it connects to the One Wire
> Weather daemon or the wx200d daemon only.
>
> --
> Curt, WE7U:  XASTIR: 
>   "Lotto:  A tax on people who are bad at math." -- unknown
> "Windows:  Microsoft's tax on computer illiterates." -- WE7U
> The world DOES revolve around me:  I picked the coordinate system!
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Re: [Xastir] Xastir and Ultimeter weather station

[Curt, WE7U]

On Sun, 20 Jan 2008, Rick Green wrote:

> I'm running a Peet Ultimeter 500, which seems to output the same data
> structures as the ultimeter 2000, but with all the 'missing' sensors
> zeroed out.  I wish there was a way I could configure xastir to ignore
> some fields, since it's reporting that it never rains here, rather than
> simply not reporting rain as it should.  And I don't have a baro sensor,
> but it's reporting some strange bogus values...

Talk to us some more about this.  I don't know much about the Peet
series.  We could do something about the above problem.


> I haven't found anything in the code that treats a 'networked' weather
> station any differently than a serial-connected one, so I'm guessing
> that the 'networked' wx station is simply a serial wx station plugged into
> a 'serial server' or a 'terminal server', so that if you were to telnet to
> the server port, you'd see the same data stream as if you ran minicom on
> the serial-connected wx station.

Nope.  Unfortunately.  In this case it connects to the One Wire
Weather daemon or the wx200d daemon only.

--
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Re: [Xastir] Xastir and Ultimeter weather station

[Curt, WE7U]

On Sat, 19 Jan 2008, Steve Jones wrote:

> I'm also worried about Xastir being tied down with a constant stream
> of traffic from the internet as well as a weather station.  I guess
> I'll have to see how badly it lags when I start feeding it the stream
> using GPSGate.

Shouldn't be a problem unless you're running a 486 or less.  I've
had in the neighborhood of 40,000 stations on my screen from a full
Firenet feed plus local RF plus weather alerts all going on and it
didn't bog down.

Every once in a while I run the code through a profiler to find out
where the slow bits are, then optimize the code.  That's done
wonders for how efficient it is.


> Another solution is to see what's involved in adding the code in
> myself.  Could be an interesting project.

You bet!  Let us know if you need any help understanding the code,
or where to add things in.  I'd be glad to look at any patches you
come up with.

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Re: [Xastir] Xastir and Ultimeter weather station

[Curt, WE7U]

On Sat, 19 Jan 2008, Chip Griffin wrote:

> I'm leaning toward
> One-Wire Weather (OWW) but haven't even been able to determine if it
> is compatible with Xastir yet.

Yes.  I did the integration of that with Xastir myself.  It works.

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Re: [Xastir] Xastir and Ultimeter weather station

[Curt, WE7U]

On Sat, 19 Jan 2008, Alex Carver wrote:

> According to the help file, it currently supports a
> Radio Shack type weather station and a specific format
> of ASCII as output (presumably by a Peet Brothers
> weather station).

Dig around in the Wiki a bit and you'll find cool pages like this:



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Re: [Xastir] Xastir and Ultimeter weather station

[Curt, WE7U]

On Sat, 19 Jan 2008, Steve Jones wrote:

> Perhaps in the future Xastir will support the wxnow.txt file.  It
> appears that Winaprs, Ui-view and APRS+SA all support it.

All Windows programs.  We tended not to support features that were
available only one one OS, since our app runs on multiple OS'es.

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Re: [Xastir] Xastir and Ultimeter weather station

[Curt, WE7U]

On Sat, 19 Jan 2008, Steve Jones wrote:

> Right now I've got another PC running Weather Display which outputs a
> wxnow.txt file every 10 minutes.  UI-View picks up this file and uses
> it to generate my weather broadcast.
>
> Is there a similar function in Xastir?

Nope.  Sorry.

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Re: [Xastir] Xastir and Ultimeter weather station

[Gerry Creager]

that's what I get for trying to respond while driving across Louisiana 
last night.


Sorry!

gerry

Steve Jones wrote:


On Jan 19, 2008, at 10:51 PM, Gerry Creager wrote:

If you're willing to experiment a bit, try bringimg up wview on the 
Mac or a linux box and let it both report the data and give you a nice 
web-based dispkay?


That said, I seem to recall a bunch of Davis updates committed to cvs 
lately, so it should work preetty well for you.


Looks like it's limited to Davis weather stations.  I've got an Peet 
Bros. Ultimeter.


--
Steve 



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Re: [Xastir] Xastir and Ultimeter weather station

[Rick Green]

On Sat, 19 Jan 2008, Chip Griffin wrote:

This gives me the impression that only Radio Shack and Peet Bros units are 
compatible. I don't see anything in any of the README files that adds to what 
is here. The FAQ only adds the following when talking about redirecting 
serial ports (how does that really have to do with setting up a weather 
station anyway):



   if you wish to put your weather station on a remote serial port,
   investigate using OWW (for Dallas weather stations), wx200d
   daemon for some Radio Shack/Huger/Oregon Scientific weather
   stations, or Meteo daemon for Davis weather stations.


So it seems we could use some help gathering the collective consciousness 
relating to (a) what is compatible and (b) how to set it up and write up some 
docs to go into (a) the help file, (b) the FAQ, and (c) a README file 
(perhaps a new one dedicated to weather stuff). I would contribute toward 
this goal, but I have no knowledge of the topic (yet).


 There's a lot of comments in the source files, that even I, a 
non-programmer, can understand.  From the first page of wx.c:


//
// The code currently supports these types of locally-connected or
// network-connected weather stations:
//
//   Peet Brothers Ultimeter 2000 (Set to Data logging mode)
//   Peet Brothers Ultimeter 2000 (Set to Packet mode)
//   Peet Brothers Ultimeter 2000 (Set to Complete Record Mode)
//   Peet Brothers Ultimeter-II
//   Qualimetrics Q-Net?
//   Radio Shack WX-200/Huger WM-918/Oregon Scientific WM-918
//   Dallas One-Wire Weather Station (via OWW network daemon)
//   Davis Weather Monitor II/Wizard III/Vantage Pro (via meteo/db2APRS 
link)

//

I'm running a Peet Ultimeter 500, which seems to output the same data 
structures as the ultimeter 2000, but with all the 'missing' sensors 
zeroed out.  I wish there was a way I could configure xastir to ignore 
some fields, since it's reporting that it never rains here, rather than 
simply not reporting rain as it should.  And I don't have a baro sensor, 
but it's reporting some strange bogus values...


I haven't found anything in the code that treats a 'networked' weather 
station any differently than a serial-connected one, so I'm guessing 
that the 'networked' wx station is simply a serial wx station plugged into 
a 'serial server' or a 'terminal server', so that if you were to telnet to 
the server port, you'd see the same data stream as if you ran minicom on 
the serial-connected wx station.
  I think Steve mentioned that Weather Display offers a 'server port', so 
he  might try this experiment:

  1) telnet to that 'server port', and capture a screenful of data.
  2) Shut down Weather display, and use minicom(if Linux) or hyperterm (if 
windows) to look at the datastream directly from the wx station.  capture 
a screenful of data.
  3) If the datastreams look at all similar, try defining a 'networked wx 
interface' to xastir, pointing to weather data's 'server port'.


--
Rick Green, N8BJX

"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little
temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
  -Benjamin Franklin

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Re: [Xastir] Xastir and Ultimeter weather station

[Alex Carver]

This thread gave me a reminder to go look up the data
formats for the Ultimeter.  I've slowly been designing
a weather station that I'd eventually like to build
and put up when I have an actual place to do it (not
an apartment).   Now I know how to format the data to
plug it into Xastir.


  

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Re: [Xastir] Xastir and Ultimeter weather station

[Steve Jones]

On Jan 19, 2008, at 10:51 PM, Gerry Creager wrote:

If you're willing to experiment a bit, try bringimg up wview on the  
Mac or a linux box and let it both report the data and give you a  
nice web-based dispkay?


That said, I seem to recall a bunch of Davis updates committed to  
cvs lately, so it should work preetty well for you.


Looks like it's limited to Davis weather stations.  I've got an Peet  
Bros. Ultimeter.


--
Steve 



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Re: [Xastir] Xastir and Ultimeter weather station

[Gerry Creager]

If you're willing to experiment a bit, try bringimg up wview on the Mac 
or a linux box and let it both report the data and give you a nice 
web-based dispkay?


That said, I seem to recall a bunch of Davis updates committed to cvs 
lately, so it should work preetty well for you.


73 gerry


Steve Jones wrote:

Hello all,

I'm seeing what's involved in making the switch from ui-view on an old 
PC to Xastir on my Mac.


So far so good.  I've got Xastir compiled and showing maps from online 
sources.  I've transferred over my Ui-View maps and all is good.


I'll need a serial to usb adaptor for the tnc but I'm not sure about 
hooking up my Ultimeter weather station.


Right now I've got another PC running Weather Display which outputs a 
wxnow.txt file every 10 minutes.  UI-View picks up this file and uses it 
to generate my weather broadcast.


Is there a similar function in Xastir?

Since Weather Display generates my weather webserver pages, I'll be 
keeping it around for the forseeable future.


I could split off another serial connection from the Ultimeter but that 
would mean hanging another usb to serial adaptor off of my computer 
which I would rather not do.


Any suggestions?

Steve
VE3XF
--
Steve 



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Re: [Xastir] Xastir and Ultimeter weather station

[Steve Jones]

On Jan 19, 2008, at 8:58 PM, Jason KG4WSV wrote:

That's your cue, Curt.  What is it, something like 22,000 stations/ 
objects

from firenet and it still runs fine?


That sounds pretty good.

I was just worried that since this is my main computer, it might get a  
little tired with a constant stream of data from the internet as well  
as my weather station plus all the background stuff that goes on.


It's a couple of years old now and I don't plan on replacing it  
anytime soon.


Steve
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Re: [Xastir] Xastir and Ultimeter weather station

[Steve Jones]

On Jan 19, 2008, at 8:50 PM, Chip Griffin wrote:


On Jan 19, 2008, at 20:32, Alex Carver wrote:

Steve can fill in a lot of the details but he's trying to use two  
computers with one Ultimeter and doesn't want to split the serial  
ports in hardware, instead he's going to try splitting the port by  
software.


Here's the current setup:

Weather Display running on an old laptop hooked up to my Ultimeter.   
Weather Display currently sets up my weather webpage and uploads it to  
my Mac (http://weather.mikeoxlong.net).  It also generates a wxnow.txt  
file every 5 minutes.


Ui-View running on a second computer which looks for the wxnow.txt  
file generated by Weather Display.  This is my APRS computer.


My main computer is a Mac.  It hosts my webpages, mail server, etc, etc.

I have been successful in building Xastir for the Mac and was hoping  
to shutdown the computer which currently runs Ui-View.


Weather Display has been running for 7 years now and it's been  
extremely reliable.  I started off with an old WX200 and upgraded to  
the Ultimeter a couple of years ago.


I currently have no plans to replace Weather Display.  All I need is a  
way to get the weather from the Weather Display computer into Xastir  
on the Mac.


I really don't see a need to pipe a full feed into Xastir but if this  
is what it's going to take, then I'll probably have to use a com port  
sharing program such as GPSGate.


I was hoping Xastir supported the wxnow.txt file that a lot of other  
programs support but apparently it doesn't.


Steve

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Re: [Xastir] Xastir and Ultimeter weather station

[Jason KG4WSV]

On Jan 19, 2008 7:54 PM, Steve Jones <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:


> I'm also worried about Xastir being tied down with a constant stream
> of traffic from the internet as well as a weather station.


That's your cue, Curt.  What is it, something like 22,000 stations/objects
from firenet and it still runs fine?

-Jason
kg4wsv
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Re: [Xastir] Xastir and Ultimeter weather station

[Steve Jones]

On Jan 19, 2008, at 8:17 PM, Alex Carver wrote:


 The idea is that Xastir can do a lot of
things on its own without depending too much on
external programs (though it's certainly extensible in
some respects).


I'm not sure how to respond to this.

I don't need Xastir to interface to my weather station.  I've already  
got a program that handles the data from my weather station quite  
well.  It puts it in a nice format for uploading to my webpage,  
generates weather report emails every 60 minutes from 8am to 10pm and  
alerts me when certain limits are exceeded.  It can also generate a  
simple text file every so many minutes that many APRS clients can read.



Having Xastir directly handle reading
from the weather station ensures that some problems
are avoided such as reading a file that's being
written at the same time.


Over all the years I've run Ui-View and Weather Display, that's never  
been an issue.



It also allows for the display of the data as it's acquired instead of
waiting for the file to update.


That would be great if I was continuously transmitting but I'm not.   
I'm also worried about Xastir being tied down with a constant stream  
of traffic from the internet as well as a weather station.  I guess  
I'll have to see how badly it lags when I start feeding it the stream  
using GPSGate.


Another solution is to see what's involved in adding the code in  
myself.  Could be an interesting project.


Steve



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Re: [Xastir] Xastir and Ultimeter weather station

[Chip Griffin]

On Jan 19, 2008, at 20:32, Alex Carver wrote:

Steve can fill in a lot of the details but he's trying to use two  
computers with one Ultimeter and doesn't want to split the serial  
ports in hardware, instead he's going to try splitting the port by  
software.



I got the impression that the plan for two computers was only an  
interim solution. The tone of the first message seemed to be that he  
was migrating the weather over to Mac too if he could. I'd like to  
see the documentation improved in this area. I haven't done weather  
yet either. I don't even have the hardware yet. I'm leaning toward  
One-Wire Weather (OWW) but haven't even been able to determine if it  
is compatible with Xastir yet. This is what the help file says  
currently:



 Configure a Serial WX Station

Set the serial port device for your WX unit. Common values of /dev/ 
ttyS0

(COM1) or /dev/ttyS1 (COM2) can be used.

Comment will allow you to set a friendly name or comment for the port.

Selecting "Activate on start up" will tell Xastir to look for this  
device and

set up communications with it when the program first starts.

Now set the bps rate under port settings, and the parameters under  
port
style. Port Style setting 8N1 is used for 8 data bits, No parity  
and 1 stop
bit. 7E1 is used for 7 data bits, even parity and 1 stop bit. 7O1  
is used for
7 data bits, odd parity, and 1 stop bit. These parameters must  
match your WX
unit. The Data Type option will allow you to override what type of  
serial data
the program will look for. The auto-detect feature will first look  
for Weather
data in a binary type as the Radio Shack WX-200 uses. If no binary  
data is
found in the stream, Xastir will look for an ASCII type of WX  
station (like

Peet Bros.).

Now set the Rain Gauge correction factor. Xastir requires that the  
rain gauge
report in .01 inch increments. If the unit reports in .1 inch or .1  
millimeter
increments, a correction must be specified to obtain accurate  
measurements.


This gives me the impression that only Radio Shack and Peet Bros  
units are compatible. I don't see anything in any of the README files  
that adds to what is here. The FAQ only adds the following when  
talking about redirecting serial ports (how does that really have to  
do with setting up a weather station anyway):



if you wish to put your weather station on a remote serial port,
investigate using OWW (for Dallas weather stations), wx200d
daemon for some Radio Shack/Huger/Oregon Scientific weather
stations, or Meteo daemon for Davis weather stations.


So it seems we could use some help gathering the collective  
consciousness relating to (a) what is compatible and (b) how to set  
it up and write up some docs to go into (a) the help file, (b) the  
FAQ, and (c) a README file (perhaps a new one dedicated to weather  
stuff). I would contribute toward this goal, but I have no knowledge  
of the topic (yet).



-- Chip


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Re: [Xastir] Xastir and Ultimeter weather station

[Matt Werner]

On Jan 19, 2008 7:17 PM, Alex Carver <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> I don't know what the Ultimeter
> puts out for data over the serial port nor do I know
> the specifics of the two formats that Xastir
> understands.  I imagine there may be a way to get the
> Ultimeter to work in Xastir with some code changes or
> data massaging.

The Ultimeters put out three different data streams - you pick which
one you want using the main unit.  Unless you have a need for
something else, I suggest using the complete one (I believe that's the
name).  I believe xastir will recognize the complete or the
abbreviated one - not sure about the APRS format.

73 - Matt
KB0KQA
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Re: [Xastir] Xastir and Ultimeter weather station

[Alex Carver]

--- vic <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> I missed the start of this thread.
> I've been using an Ultimeter with Xastir for many
> years now.
> What is the problem, I maybe can help.
> Regards Victor

Steve can fill in a lot of the details but he's trying
to use two computers with one Ultimeter and doesn't
want to split the serial ports in hardware, instead
he's going to try splitting the port by software.




  

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Re: [Xastir] Xastir and Ultimeter weather station

[vic]

I missed the start of this thread.
I've been using an Ultimeter with Xastir for many years now.
What is the problem, I maybe can help.
Regards Victor



On Sat, 19 Jan 2008 17:17:40 -0800 (PST)
Alex Carver <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

> --- Steve Jones <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > On Jan 19, 2008, at 6:46 PM, Alex Carver wrote:
> > > work.  Some of them are commercial so you'll be
> > > paying.  I think one that's rather popular is
> > Franson
> > > GPSGate.  The Mac only has to run a program called
> > > 'socat' which can turn a network connection into a
> > > virtual serial port.
> > 
> > Looks like this is the solution for now.  Should be
> > simple to implement.
> > 
> > Weather Display does offer a server port but I can't
> > find what format  
> > the data is in and Xastir doesn't seem to like it.
> > 
> > Perhaps in the future Xastir will support the
> > wxnow.txt file.  It  
> > appears that Winaprs, Ui-view and APRS+SA all
> > support it.
> 
> I took a peek in Xastir to see how it supported
> weather stations and I see it will either support a
> serial port or a network port.  Still don't know the
> format but I'll need to poke around to figure that
> out.
> 
> Not supporting the 'wxnow.txt' file I think is
> reasonable.  The idea is that Xastir can do a lot of
> things on its own without depending too much on
> external programs (though it's certainly extensible in
> some respects).  Having Xastir directly handle reading
> from the weather station ensures that some problems
> are avoided such as reading a file that's being
> written at the same time.  It also allows for the
> display of the data as it's acquired instead of
> waiting for the file to update.
> 
> According to the help file, it currently supports a
> Radio Shack type weather station and a specific format
> of ASCII as output (presumably by a Peet Brothers
> weather station).  I don't know what the Ultimeter
> puts out for data over the serial port nor do I know
> the specifics of the two formats that Xastir
> understands.  I imagine there may be a way to get the
> Ultimeter to work in Xastir with some code changes or
> data massaging.
> 
> 
>   
> 
> Be a better friend, newshound, and 
> know-it-all with Yahoo! Mobile.  Try it now.  
> http://mobile.yahoo.com/;_ylt=Ahu06i62sR8HDtDypao8Wcj9tAcJ 
> 
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-- 
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Re: [Xastir] Xastir and Ultimeter weather station

[Alex Carver]

--- Steve Jones <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> On Jan 19, 2008, at 6:46 PM, Alex Carver wrote:
> > work.  Some of them are commercial so you'll be
> > paying.  I think one that's rather popular is
> Franson
> > GPSGate.  The Mac only has to run a program called
> > 'socat' which can turn a network connection into a
> > virtual serial port.
> 
> Looks like this is the solution for now.  Should be
> simple to implement.
> 
> Weather Display does offer a server port but I can't
> find what format  
> the data is in and Xastir doesn't seem to like it.
> 
> Perhaps in the future Xastir will support the
> wxnow.txt file.  It  
> appears that Winaprs, Ui-view and APRS+SA all
> support it.

I took a peek in Xastir to see how it supported
weather stations and I see it will either support a
serial port or a network port.  Still don't know the
format but I'll need to poke around to figure that
out.

Not supporting the 'wxnow.txt' file I think is
reasonable.  The idea is that Xastir can do a lot of
things on its own without depending too much on
external programs (though it's certainly extensible in
some respects).  Having Xastir directly handle reading
from the weather station ensures that some problems
are avoided such as reading a file that's being
written at the same time.  It also allows for the
display of the data as it's acquired instead of
waiting for the file to update.

According to the help file, it currently supports a
Radio Shack type weather station and a specific format
of ASCII as output (presumably by a Peet Brothers
weather station).  I don't know what the Ultimeter
puts out for data over the serial port nor do I know
the specifics of the two formats that Xastir
understands.  I imagine there may be a way to get the
Ultimeter to work in Xastir with some code changes or
data massaging.


  

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Re: [Xastir] Xastir and Ultimeter weather station

[Steve Jones]

On Jan 19, 2008, at 6:46 PM, Alex Carver wrote:


work.  Some of them are commercial so you'll be
paying.  I think one that's rather popular is Franson
GPSGate.  The Mac only has to run a program called
'socat' which can turn a network connection into a
virtual serial port.


Looks like this is the solution for now.  Should be simple to implement.

Weather Display does offer a server port but I can't find what format  
the data is in and Xastir doesn't seem to like it.


Perhaps in the future Xastir will support the wxnow.txt file.  It  
appears that Winaprs, Ui-view and APRS+SA all support it.


Steve
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Re: [Xastir] Xastir and Ultimeter weather station

[Alex Carver]

--- Steve Jones <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Since Weather Display generates my weather webserver
> pages, I'll be  
> keeping it around for the forseeable future.
> 
> I could split off another serial connection from the
> Ultimeter but  
> that would mean hanging another usb to serial
> adaptor off of my  
> computer which I would rather not do.
> 
> Any suggestions?

I'm not sure how Xastir handles weather data, so I'll
leave that to someone else to answer (though I'm
curious for the eventual time when I can actually put
up a weather station).

If Xastir wants a serial port instead of a file to
read from, then you have a couple ways of sharing the
port.  The easiest way is obviously the second serial
dongle if you're intending to keep two completely
different machines.

The harder way that doesn't require an additional
adapter is to use a few bits of software to create
virtual serial ports with the possibility of
connecting them over the network.

This second method depends on the configuration.  If
you can move your weather web page over to the Mac,
you can compile and run everything under OS X.  If you
don't move it, you'll have to find software to work on
both the Mac (compiled or otherwise) and on the
Windows machine.

Leaving the server on the Windows machine:  The
Windows machine would have to create two virtual ports
and share one over the network.  The Mac would create
a virtual serial port via a network connection to the
Windows machine.  There's software for splitting up
ports on Windows and making them available over
network connections but I don't know how well they
work.  Some of them are commercial so you'll be
paying.  I think one that's rather popular is Franson
GPSGate.  The Mac only has to run a program called
'socat' which can turn a network connection into a
virtual serial port.

Moving the server to the Mac:  The Mac would be
running three small programs.  One would be 'ser2net'
http://sourceforge.net/projects/ser2net/ which can
create a network connection to a serial port but
allows multiple connections to that network port (as I
understand it).  Then the Mac runs two copies of socat
to create two virtual serial ports.

-Alex


  

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[Xastir] Xastir and Ultimeter weather station

[Steve Jones]

Hello all,

I'm seeing what's involved in making the switch from ui-view on an old  
PC to Xastir on my Mac.


So far so good.  I've got Xastir compiled and showing maps from online  
sources.  I've transferred over my Ui-View maps and all is good.


I'll need a serial to usb adaptor for the tnc but I'm not sure about  
hooking up my Ultimeter weather station.


Right now I've got another PC running Weather Display which outputs a  
wxnow.txt file every 10 minutes.  UI-View picks up this file and uses  
it to generate my weather broadcast.


Is there a similar function in Xastir?

Since Weather Display generates my weather webserver pages, I'll be  
keeping it around for the forseeable future.


I could split off another serial connection from the Ultimeter but  
that would mean hanging another usb to serial adaptor off of my  
computer which I would rather not do.


Any suggestions?

Steve
VE3XF
--
Steve 



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