Trixology

Weather => Weather Hardware/Measurement => Topic started by: xairbusdriver on March 14, 2016, 10:32:09 PM

Title: Annual Rain: Console vs WC Stats
Post by: xairbusdriver on March 14, 2016, 10:32:09 PM

Since I got my new Console last week, I've noticed (finally!) that my Annual and Monthly Rain Custom Gauges are way off. Searching the forums, I see a couple of remarks by the dev that the "Annual rain... [is] coming directly from your console, whereas the rain in the stats will be coming from WeatherCat's data." If I understand that correctly, does that mean I'm now 'up the (smaller) creek'? I probably did this one of the times I used the Comms resetting procedures or by leaving the logger un-powered for too long?That has nothing to do with it, the logger uses non-volital ram and should easily maintain the data for several minutes, if not hours, certainly longer than it would normally take to switch Consoles. [blush]

I see there are some fields in the Prefs->Units/Misc 1->Rain area for setting Rain Season & Annual Rain Offsets. I think the "Rain Season Begins" is mainly for CWOP or some other service that normally uses Oct(?). I don't think I changed my settings from the default Jan value. Should I edit either of those two "offsets" to add the rather high values up until the Console was swapped? Are there any other consequences (assuming that is even appropriate)?

I'm also unsure how to change the Monthly Gauge.

Right now, both the Monthly and Annual Gauges show only the rains since the new Console was installed:

         Gauge     Stats
Monthly   1.96    11.09 in
Yearly    1.96    18.99 in

I believe the Data Viewer/Editor has the correct values for the Monthly/Annual Rain totals, which is where the Stats values come from, correct?

Suggestions/instructions/manual pages?

I see there is a "RAINyr" button on the Console, I suspect that is a 'shortcut to setting the 'Rain Season' month...

Title: Re: Annual Rain: Console vs WC Stats
Post by: Blicj11 on March 14, 2016, 10:43:20 PM

You need to edit the Monthly Rain and YTD Rain in the console to be correct. Then everything will match up. In the Davis manual, it's listed under calibrate data.

Title: Re: Annual Rain: Console vs WC Stats
Post by: xairbusdriver on March 15, 2016, 01:23:30 AM

Oh sure! Give me the old "Read the blankety-blank manual!" answer. [rolleyes2] Frankly, I'm a bit disappointed in your lack of imagination. Especially on Pi Day! [banghead]

Oh well, sometimes the simplest way is the best way. [lol]

Thanks!!! But you sure didn't help me avoid that 'honey do' list for very long. [coffee]

Title: Re: Annual Rain: Console vs WC Stats
Post by: xairbusdriver on March 15, 2016, 03:36:50 PM

Just a reminder to those who forget what... who forget... Great, now I can't even remember what I was going to post!!! [banghead]

Oh yeah! About that manual thing, it's amazing what you can find in those, sometimes. [blush]

I managed to set the Monthly and Yearly values that only WC was storing correctly (thanks, again, to the Dev! [cheer] ). I did have to re-read the instructions a few times. They are on pages 27-29, plus a note to check p.21, BTW. Unlike Apple, Davis uses 10 buttons in two different ways, with or without that "2nd" button. And then there are the relatively straight forward DONE, +, -, <, and > keys. But sometimes more is better, even if there are hidden things that happen without notice.

When I started to work on setting the two incorrect values, my first problem was which one to press to set the Monthly value... there ain't no "RAINmon" button! Taking a wild leap of faith, similar to starting a Cat IIIc approach, I pressed the "RAINyr" button.

Amazingly, the Console display switched from Rain Rate to Rain Mo! How do it know? That "RAINyr" button actually cycles through three different weather settings; Rain rate, monthly and yearly totals. Don't bother trying to understand why one is a very short time frame and the other two are several orders of magnitude higher, or that there is a separate button for Rain day. I'm sure it's all in the Manual somewhere and it does make sense to have two different displays for something like Rain. At any rate, I was confused (again?) at first.

Oh well, all's well that ends well! So one more thanks to Blick for kindly pointing out the obvious without calling me stupid! [tup]

Title: Re: Annual Rain: Console vs WC Stats
Post by: xairbusdriver on March 15, 2016, 03:52:17 PM

The mention of a 'secret' two key procedure the Davis tech used turns out not to be very secret at all. In fact, it's even mentioned on p. 8 of the Quick Reference Guide. It is also explained in detail, complete with a great graphic in the full Manual on page 39-42. Probably a very good procedure to use this Diagnostic Mode function along with your regular maintenance schedule.

The "mysterious" BGN 15 could be one of the most important values displayed. If that number is above ~60, it is telling you that there is a lot of background noise in the signal from a wireless station. That could be from other transmitters or it could mean the station signal is weak. The 'weakness' may simply be dues to bad antenna positioning or obstructions (walls, wiring, moved Console position). Might be good to check that number if you start seeing more bad comms/packets/low percentage of good packets (mainly, the first three values on the top row in Diagnostic Mode).

Title: Re: Annual Rain: Console vs WC Stats
Post by: Bull Winkus on March 15, 2016, 06:02:55 PM

Thanks Xair! Good to know.

 [cheers1]

Title: Protect that console if you can! (Re: Annual Rain: Console vs WC Stats)
Post by: elagache on March 15, 2016, 10:34:59 PM

Dear X-Air, Blick, Herb, and WeatherCat Davis station owners,

Quote from: Blicj11 on March 14, 2016, 10:43:20 PM

You need to edit the Monthly Rain and YTD Rain in the console to be correct. Then everything will match up. In the Davis manual, it's listed under calibrate data.

Well, yes this is 100% correct, but it is slightly counter-intuitive and it is worth pointing out the reason for the surprise.  WeatherCat stores a lot of data in its own database, but some data is not stored on your Mac, but instead WeatherCat uses the Davis console data (or equivalent Weather Envoy data.)  When everything is working perfectly - of course the data looks exactly what you expect.

The surprise comes when like X-Air you have to replace a console, or in my case, I had to power-cycle my Weather Envoy to get it to reconnect with my ISS.  When doing this, I lost all the data that was stored on the Envoy.

Once you understand how WeatherCat divides its data storage with the Davis console, you are prepared for the loss of data. However, if you naively assume all your weather data is stored exclusively on your Mac, it does come a rather large - surprise! (http://www.canebas.org/WeatherCat/Forum_support_documents/Custom_emoticons/eek2.gif)

Cheers, Edouard  [cheers1]