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The 1st Month with CumulusMX

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caerhays
Posts: 37
Joined: Tue 15 Jan 2019 11:04 am
Weather Station: Watson W8681
Operating System: Windows 10 Home

The 1st Month with CumulusMX

Post by caerhays »

I will summarise my experience to date.

I am new to the field of Weather Stations and was bought mine for this past Xmas from my wife. Her only comment would be "what on earth would you want one of those for". As a retired engineer & manager I have always been interested in statistics ("there are lies, damned lies and statistics" ) and what better subject than the weather to look at analysees of.

So I plumped for a Watson W-8681 from Amazon because it was a decent price, had been in production for a long time, had good reviews and importantly sent data by radio frequency transmitter to a console (datalogger) that could be kept in the house. I also liked the idea that you could transfer the data to computer to analyse it. Set up was easy although instructions were minimal but it was up an running with a couple of hours. I had already prepared a suitable rigid 2.4 metre post in my garden to receive it.

The first thing I wouldn't have done now I know better was to connect it to Easyweather, and subsequently CumulusMX , on my PC before purging the erroneous data one gets after it starts logging data points as you handle it. So advice to anyone setting one up. When your station is first working and logging data to your console , make sure that after you're happy with its position and all is working well, that you delete all initial data from your console. Then when you first link to your PC all your data is valid and you won't introduce stupid values of 500mph winds and 25 degree temps outdoors in winter like I did.

Secondly, don't bother with Easyweather if it comes with your station except for the one reason below. Cumulus is much better all-round. Period.

If you do run Easyweather then don't run Cumulus at the same time. On the Watson W-8681 I believe the only way to delete data from memory is to run Easyweather as the function to erase memory is within it so you may want to install and use it at least once as I advised.

If you are a Windows 10 user, be careful to ensure your PC is not doing an update when you start Cumulus. If Cumulus appears to just hang and take ages to start then leave it alone. Quitting may corrupt or cut off your data transfer from your console. Don't quit Cumulus until the window says "normal running" cos it's still transferring data.

I have found the wireless connection from my station to the console in my house rock solid. no interruptions at all in the first month. I am about 20 metres from the station but there are 3 blocks walls directly between station and console.

I have used Cumulus to set up a web page on a domain I own and it displays well. I was looking to put it on to a new domain I have purchased but when I looked for a new free hosting for the site, after uploading the site, on first connection with Cumulus it locked my account !. Evidently many of the free hostings available don't like weather sites because they involve the use of automated scripts and they have detection software that looks for such scripts and stops them. It was actually flagged as fraud !. So I shall continue my search for a free hosting. I know I can afford to pay but I am a bit of a skinflint and I only want a basic site and don't need email and all the bells and whistles you might pay for.

CumulusMX is great. If I wanted improvements I would look for :
1. A way to transfer data out as a csv file so I could import it into MSExcel or OpenOffice for further analysis.
2. A way to print the charts and the pages by clicking a button.
3. An easier way to edit the data files.

So those are my experiences and thoughts. Thank you to the members of this community that have been so helpful .

Regards, Phil
water01
Posts: 3215
Joined: Sat 13 Aug 2011 9:33 am
Weather Station: Ecowitt HP2551
Operating System: Windows 10 64bit
Location: Burnham-on-Sea
Contact:

Re: The 1st Month with CumulusMX

Post by water01 »

The memory on all FineOffset weather stations is dynamic and cyclic (i.e. it chooses where to start and once the memory is full it starts reusing the are with the oldest data in it), so there is no reason to purge the memory with EasyWeather unless you want to get rid of erroneous readings.
David
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PaulMy
Posts: 3775
Joined: Sun 28 Sep 2008 11:54 pm
Weather Station: Davis VP2 Plus 24-Hour FARS
Operating System: Windows8 and Windows10
Location: Komoka, ON Canada
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Re: The 1st Month with CumulusMX

Post by PaulMy »

Good write-up Phil, and all good points and sounds like you've had a very good learning experience as well.

Glad you joined and are enjoying... I too like stats and historical information... would you like to know what the weather was when our now 7-year old twin grandsons were born??? ;)
https://www.wunderground.com/personal-w ... 205/mdaily

Enjoy,
Paul
Davis Vantage Pro2+
C1 www.komokaweather.com/komokaweather-ca
MX www.komokaweather.com/cumulusmx/index.htm /index.html /index.php
MX www.komokaweather.com/cumulusmxwll/index.htm /index.html /index.php
MX www. komokaweather.com/cumulusmx4/index.htm

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caerhays
Posts: 37
Joined: Tue 15 Jan 2019 11:04 am
Weather Station: Watson W8681
Operating System: Windows 10 Home

Re: The 1st Month with CumulusMX

Post by caerhays »

Hi Paul,

I see you're in Ontario, Canada. In 1975 I emigrated to Canada to work as a Mining Engineer in Flin Flon, Manitoba. I see the temperature there got down to -43 C recently. The coldest I experienced was -35 C . We only stayed a year as it was a bit remote and Canada was in the midst of a bit of a recession and jobs were hard to come by. I don't know if my weather station would stand up to such temperatures. The plastic bits would probably get so brittle they'd break off.

Anyway that was a lifetime ago but it was an interesting experience . The town's population has halved to just over 5000 now and if the smelter shuts down I think it will be a ghost town.

I like where I live here in Cornwall, UK as we have mild winters and warm summers, more so than the rest of the UK. The weather is very variable on the peninsula such that you can have clear skies and warmth on one coast and be totally overcast with rain on the other, even though north coast to south coast is only about 17 miles. I'm on the south coast. If you want to see a really good weather site that has literally everything on it then look at http://www.newquayweather.com/index.php. Newquay is on the north coast.

Regards, Phil
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PaulMy
Posts: 3775
Joined: Sun 28 Sep 2008 11:54 pm
Weather Station: Davis VP2 Plus 24-Hour FARS
Operating System: Windows8 and Windows10
Location: Komoka, ON Canada
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Re: The 1st Month with CumulusMX

Post by PaulMy »

Nice to reminisce. Flin Flon is quite a bit north and in wintertime Manitoba can get really cold.

Forum user memberlist.php?mode=viewprofile&u=1813 is from Cornwall in Great Busullow (I see he has not been active here recently) and is the co-inventor of the Blake-Larsen sunrecorder which I had originally tested for them in 2011 and still going http://www.komokaweather.com/weather/su ... today.html

We get cold here and hot in the summer, but the 4 seasons are great, just which deep winter could be little shorter...

Enjoy,
Paul
Davis Vantage Pro2+
C1 www.komokaweather.com/komokaweather-ca
MX www.komokaweather.com/cumulusmx/index.htm /index.html /index.php
MX www.komokaweather.com/cumulusmxwll/index.htm /index.html /index.php
MX www. komokaweather.com/cumulusmx4/index.htm

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TerryMulhern
Posts: 7
Joined: Thu 14 Mar 2019 5:46 am
Weather Station: WS2300
Operating System: Windows 8

Re: The 1st Month with CumulusMX

Post by TerryMulhern »

Hi,

My first month was a struggle when I was importing CSV files with semi-colons in Excel. I also used WeeWx and Weather-Display before. But CumulusMX is still the best weather software program I've tried so far.

What (books, resources) should I recommend my students in the first place? They are complete noobs.


Terry Mulhern
_______________
My Path login: Windows 8, Cumulus 1.9.4 >>> researches and tech reports written by writemyresearchpaper.onl
water01
Posts: 3215
Joined: Sat 13 Aug 2011 9:33 am
Weather Station: Ecowitt HP2551
Operating System: Windows 10 64bit
Location: Burnham-on-Sea
Contact:

Re: The 1st Month with CumulusMX

Post by water01 »

What (books, resources) should I recommend my students in the first place? They are complete noobs.
About weather in general or about CumulsMX?
David
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mcrossley
Posts: 12689
Joined: Thu 07 Jan 2010 9:44 pm
Weather Station: Davis VP2/WLL
Operating System: Bullseye Lite rPi
Location: Wilmslow, Cheshire, UK
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Re: The 1st Month with CumulusMX

Post by mcrossley »

Thanks for the post Phil, it's nice to know how people are getting on.
caerhays wrote: Thu 07 Feb 2019 11:17 am CumulusMX is great. If I wanted improvements I would look for :
1. A way to transfer data out as a csv file so I could import it into MSExcel or OpenOffice for further analysis.
2. A way to print the charts and the pages by clicking a button.
3. An easier way to edit the data files.
1. The data is already stored in CSV files that you can open in Excel, or import into Access say. It makes it easier if you take a copy of the file add the first header line from the appropriate header file in the root folder - dayfileheader.txt say - you may need to change the field separators of the header to match your locale setting. Then you get the column headings in Excel.

NOTE: Be cautious of saving from Excel, it has a tendency to mangle the date format unless you explicitly set it.

2. You can! For the charts anyway... Click the "hamburger" menu at the top right of the chart, there you can view the chart full screen, print, or save it in various file formats.

3. The built in editors are the best I can do in the program at the moment. The alternative is to install a decent text edit (TextPad or the like) and learn how to use it. Most can understand CSV format and allow you to use regular expressions or other advanced search and replace options.
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TerryMulhern
Posts: 7
Joined: Thu 14 Mar 2019 5:46 am
Weather Station: WS2300
Operating System: Windows 8

Re: The 1st Month with CumulusMX

Post by TerryMulhern »

water01 wrote: Wed 07 Jul 2021 8:28 am
About weather in general or about CumulsMX?
Preferably about CumulsMX. Thanks.
water01
Posts: 3215
Joined: Sat 13 Aug 2011 9:33 am
Weather Station: Ecowitt HP2551
Operating System: Windows 10 64bit
Location: Burnham-on-Sea
Contact:

Re: The 1st Month with CumulusMX

Post by water01 »

David
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