OK, I'm making some progress in this. I've found a WeeWx extension that will create the WXNOW.TXT and I've found out that I have to create a WX port for YAAC to check for that file.
It looks like it should work.
However, when creating the port it asks for the weather station used. I'm confused, as I thought the WXNOW.TXT spec was hardware agnostic. So what exactly happens when I choose a model? And specifically, as the list of models (quite old) does not include my model, what happens when I choose the wrong model?
Also, where do I put my CWOP station name?
Last edit: Bill Arthur 2020-02-19
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OK, Re-re-re-reading the help files it looks like YAAC just sends the wx data to other stations in the area. I thought it sent it to CWOP. I'll make that a feature request.
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The reason the WXNOW.TXT port driver in YAAC wants to know the weather station model is because that's part of the APRS weather protocol message, but the WXNOW.TXT file doesn't necessarily contain that information. Knowing the model help weather data consumers interpret your data (ex.: it's not a failure if there's no barometric pressure data if it's an old Peet Bros Ultimeter 500 station [which didn't have a pressure sensor]).
All weather station data on APRS-IS is fed to the US National Weather Service (they are a consumer of APRS-IS data), so you can basically consider all APRS weather stations (at least, those that make it to the APRS-IS backbone) as contributing to the CWOP program, assuming that their data is consistent according to the NWS MADIS quality control standards. These are sanity checks performed on weather station data to ensure that it is sane (not completely out-of-range) and reasonably consistent with other nearby weather stations (ex.: if all weather stations around your station say the wind is from the west, then your weather station should be saying it's a west wind too).
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Thanks for the quick response.
I'll do some testing this week to see if the data is getting into MADIS.
I made an enhancement request about the weather station model. I hope it can be incorporated as the pull down choices are not remotely related to my equipment.
Last edit: Bill Arthur 2020-02-19
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Due to how I have my stations named it's not easy to check for the data on MADIS so for now I'm checking the raw data on aprs.fi I'm seeing wx data twice an hour.
Before I went to bed last night I shut off the wx port so I wouldn't wake to any surprises. I forgot to uncheck the weather box on the beacon so for many hours the beacon put out stale wx data.
Ideally, I should send data to CWOP every five to ten minutes. I don't see how to set that up.
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I'm making a fix in the next build to not export weather if you don't have a working (enabled and open) weather port. That should solve the stale weather problem.
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OK, I think I'm one step away from being able to set up a weather station on a remote hilltop and have it report back via APRS.
All I need to do is to configure it to send every 10 minutes instead of every 30 minutes.
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That's easy. Just set your beacon rate to 10 minutes fast and 10 minutes slow (i.e., disable the time decay) for the beacon record that has weather enabled on it.
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Everything is working well on the YAAC side, my data is making it into findu.
But it's not quite ready to field. I've found that the weewx extension that creates the wxnow.txt is not retrieving the 1hr and 12hr rain data. Hopefully we can get that fixed soon.
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Has anyone sucessfully integrated YAAC and WeeWx? Possibly by having WeeWx send a WXNOW.TXT file?
OK, I'm making some progress in this. I've found a WeeWx extension that will create the WXNOW.TXT and I've found out that I have to create a WX port for YAAC to check for that file.
It looks like it should work.
However, when creating the port it asks for the weather station used. I'm confused, as I thought the WXNOW.TXT spec was hardware agnostic. So what exactly happens when I choose a model? And specifically, as the list of models (quite old) does not include my model, what happens when I choose the wrong model?
Also, where do I put my CWOP station name?
Last edit: Bill Arthur 2020-02-19
OK, Re-re-re-reading the help files it looks like YAAC just sends the wx data to other stations in the area. I thought it sent it to CWOP. I'll make that a feature request.
I finally got it going.
github's directions were not complete.
wee_extension is extremely picky about file location.
It's going out locally. Now I have to figure out if it is going to CWOP.
A couple of things:
The reason the WXNOW.TXT port driver in YAAC wants to know the weather station model is because that's part of the APRS weather protocol message, but the WXNOW.TXT file doesn't necessarily contain that information. Knowing the model help weather data consumers interpret your data (ex.: it's not a failure if there's no barometric pressure data if it's an old Peet Bros Ultimeter 500 station [which didn't have a pressure sensor]).
All weather station data on APRS-IS is fed to the US National Weather Service (they are a consumer of APRS-IS data), so you can basically consider all APRS weather stations (at least, those that make it to the APRS-IS backbone) as contributing to the CWOP program, assuming that their data is consistent according to the NWS MADIS quality control standards. These are sanity checks performed on weather station data to ensure that it is sane (not completely out-of-range) and reasonably consistent with other nearby weather stations (ex.: if all weather stations around your station say the wind is from the west, then your weather station should be saying it's a west wind too).
Thanks for the quick response.
I'll do some testing this week to see if the data is getting into MADIS.
I made an enhancement request about the weather station model. I hope it can be incorporated as the pull down choices are not remotely related to my equipment.
Last edit: Bill Arthur 2020-02-19
Due to how I have my stations named it's not easy to check for the data on MADIS so for now I'm checking the raw data on aprs.fi I'm seeing wx data twice an hour.
Before I went to bed last night I shut off the wx port so I wouldn't wake to any surprises. I forgot to uncheck the weather box on the beacon so for many hours the beacon put out stale wx data.
Ideally, I should send data to CWOP every five to ten minutes. I don't see how to set that up.
I'm making a fix in the next build to not export weather if you don't have a working (enabled and open) weather port. That should solve the stale weather problem.
OK, I think I'm one step away from being able to set up a weather station on a remote hilltop and have it report back via APRS.
All I need to do is to configure it to send every 10 minutes instead of every 30 minutes.
That's easy. Just set your beacon rate to 10 minutes fast and 10 minutes slow (i.e., disable the time decay) for the beacon record that has weather enabled on it.
Ah, too easy. Testing it right now.
Everything is working well on the YAAC side, my data is making it into findu.
But it's not quite ready to field. I've found that the weewx extension that creates the wxnow.txt is not retrieving the 1hr and 12hr rain data. Hopefully we can get that fixed soon.