Nat. Geo. 265NC / Cumulus 1.7.17 / Weather Underground

[GeniSim]

Hi,

I live in Saguenay, Quebec, Canada, and bought about 1 week ago a National Geographic 265NC weather station. I am using EasyWeather 2.0 V4.16 downloaded from Fine Offset Electronics web site because the version that came with the station was very inefficient and Cumulus 1.7.13 to manage the Weather Underground weather station IQUEBECJ3.

My experience after 1 week of operation is that I needed to increase the priority of both the easyweather.exe and the cumulus.exe processes on my computer in order to keep the processus of transfering the data from my National Geographic 265NC weather station to my internet IQUEBECJ3 weather station running without interruptions. With the initial very inefficient version of EasyWeather 2.0 that I got as part of the National Geographic 265NC weather station even selecting the top priority was not enough to keep the processus running hence the many gaps in the IQUEBECJ3 weather station data.

I have a question about the full compatibility of EasyWeather 2.0 V4.16 with Cumulus 1.7.13 as I have notice that the format of the easyweather.dat file is not the same between the 2 version of EasyWeather 2.0 that I used and I got some very strange data lines on my IQUEBECJ3 weather station data when I changed of EasyWeather 2.0 version:

10:07 68.2 °F / 20.1 °C 56.5 °F / 13.6 °C 29.98pouce / 1015.1hPa Est 2.0mph / 3.2km/h 2.0mph / 3.2km/h 67% -0.60pouce / -15.2mm

10:17 68.5 °F / 20.3 °C 56.8 °F / 13.8 °C 29.98pouce / 1015.1hPa Calm 1.0mph / 1.6km/h 67% -1.07pouce / -27.2mm

10:27 68.7 °F / 20.4 °C 56.1 °F / 13.4 °C 29.98pouce / 1015.1hPa NE 1.0mph / 1.6km/h 2.0mph / 3.2km/h 65% -1.07pouce / -27.2mm

10:37 68.0 °F / 20.0 °C 56.3 °F / 13.5 °C 29.98pouce / 1015.1hPa Calm 0.0mph / 0.0km/h 67% -1.07pouce / -27.2mm

10:47 68.7 °F / 20.4 °C 56.6 °F / 13.7 °C 29.98pouce / 1015.1hPa Calm 2.0mph / 3.2km/h 66% -1.07pouce / -27.2mm

Those negative rain rate disapeared on their own after that but still IQUEBECJ3 is reporting 40 minutes of negative rain fall !

Best regards,

Marc

[steve]

I've only ever seen one format of the easyweather.dat file and I didn't realise that it had changed between the two versions of Easyweather 2.0. It seems rather strange that they would do that - I could understand if it had changed between v1 and v2.

Is anyone else having problems like this?

Steve

[GeniSim]

About the easyweather.dat format change, the size of the file has change: the 265NC version is much bigger for the same number of reconds. Yet, I was wrong to assume that the format has changed as on close inspection it look the same!

Since I have installed the V4.16 version, the communication between the station and EasyWeather is more robust but I have notice that after a while EasyWeather is doubling the size of the easyweather.dat file and is getting the rain data all mixed-up hence the strange data that Cumulus is sending to my Weather Underground station IQUEBECJ3. It happend again this morning see: http://www.wunderground.com/weatherstat ... 08&month=8

So the problem is not related to Cumulus compatibility with EasyWeather, it is a 100% EasyWeather problem. EasyWeather 1.0 is supposed to be more reliable, is anyone can tell me where I could download it ?

Best regards,

Marc

[steve]

The rain problem in Easyweather is probably the same one as described here:

https://cumulus.hosiene.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=29

As far as I know Fine Offset still haven't come up with a fix.

Steve

[GeniSim]

My solution to EasyWeather instabilities both in term of failing communication with the weather station and the wrong calculation of rainfall is to reset it every hour. To do so I wrote the following .BAT file

pskill easyweather
cd C:\Program Files\EasyWeather
del easyweather.dat
start /realtime EasyWeather.exe

In order to kill the running EasyWeather process, you need Pskill that you can get for free at: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysi ... 96683.aspx

In order to automatically run that .BAT file every hour or so, you need a scheduler that let you do so, you can one free at: http://www.splinterware.com/products/wincron.htm

Hopefully this way, Cumulus will be able to get up to date data as well as accurate rainfall data from easyweather.dat !

Marc

[GeniSim]

I have found myself a place where version 1 of EasyWeather can be donwloded it is: http://www.lacrossetechnology.co.nz/ima ... WS1081.zip

To first glance it looks identical to version 2. I will try to use it soon instead of version 2 to see first if it is compatible with my National Geographic 265NC station and second if it work better.

So far, I have discovered that killing and restarting version 2 every hour is not enough to completely eliminate getting bad rainfall data. I will try first to do that reset every 30 minutes instead as it is a simpler thing to try.

You can check the results both on my Weather Underground station at: http://www.wunderground.com/weatherstat ... phspan=day
or on my private web site at: http://www.genisim.com/weather/index.htm
both now managed by Cumulus 1.7.14

Marc

[GeniSim]

Finally increasing the reset rate to every 30 minutes is not fixing the bad rainfall data problem. So I shifted to EasyWeather 1.0 a little while ago. We will see if that if fixing the problem.

Marc

[harrym1byt]

I tried V1 and I still got the rainfall errors.

[GeniSim]

Hi,

If you check my weather data both on my Weather Underground station at:
http://www.wunderground.com/weatherstat ... 08&month=8
or on my private web site at: http://www.genisim.com/weather/index.htm, you will see that since I shifted to using EasyWeather 1.0 and Cumulus 1.7.14 on August 13, I am reporting acceptable rainfall data (no more negative rainfall rate, and no more rain when it is not raining). Yesterday evening it rained and that is well recorded as well.

I do reinitialize the communication every 10 minutes by running the following .BAT file:

pskill easyweather
cd C:\Program Files\EasyWeather
start /realtime EasyWeather.exe

since I started to do that, the data is systematically updated every 10 minutes as it should.

I also erase the easyweather.dat file every day to avoid it to double in size at some point and screwed-up the railfall data by running the following .BAT file:

cd C:\Program Files\EasyWeather
del easyweather.dat

So, this solution is certanly working for me so far, even if it is only a patch!

As a reminder, in order to kill the running EasyWeather process, you need Pskill that you can get for free at: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysi ... 96683.aspx

In order to automatically run .BAT files on a flexible schedule, you need a scheduler that let you do so, you can one free at: http://www.splinterware.com/products/wincron.htm

Marc

[Danny]

Dear Marc,
Did you try to use only Easyweather as the main program ?
Double size in the .dat file occurs when another program is running at the same time reading that .dat file and strange graphics are shown. It is a duplicated data problem.
Delete the easyweather.dat file and run it alone.
It is a poor program, but I don´t know another who can get the data from some weather stations directly.

Regards,

Daniel

[steve]

Daniel,

I don't understand how Cumulus can affect Easyweather like that when it's only reading the data file. I'm not saying it doesn't, I just don't understand what the mechanism would be. There seem to be quite a few people on the internet who are having the rainfall problem and they're only running Easyweather.

There is one well-known program which will talk to the Easyweather stations directly, but it's not free.

Steve

[GeniSim]

Hi,

I only been playing with my weather station since August 1st so I am still quite fresh, but I did a lot of searching on the Internet since I bought my National Geographic 265NC station. If I have my IQUEBECJ3 Weather Underground station and my private weather station web pages on the Internet, it is because I am using Culumus which is doing all the work for me.

The weak link is EasyWeather. The version 2.0 that I got with my station was terrible. The version 1.0 that looks identical is more stable but is far from working perfectly. Yes, it would be nice to bypass EasyWeather completely. For that, right now the only option that I know is to use Weather Display http://www.weather-display.com/index.php which is indeed not free.

The pressure should be put on Fine Offset Electronics to finally release a version of EasyWeather http://www.foshk.com/en/products/show.asp?id=41 that is working property. This problem is well documented on the Net see per example: http://www.midlandsweather.org.uk/techi ... rsion.html and http://www.midlandsweather.org.uk/techi ... -data.html

Steve is supposed to be in contact with them, contrary to Steve here from Cumulus, those guys from Fine Offset Electronics have never answered my e-mail information request. You can try to contact them at: http://www.foshk.com/en/contact/index.asp

Marc

[harrym1byt]

I have written to them twice. Once regarding some help with small problem with the display, they replied immediately, politely and with the correct solution. I then wrote to the again, this time about the corruption in the rainfall data - they failed to reply to that one.

[GeniSim]

Hi,

Now with Cumulus 1.7.15 it is supposed to be possible to bypass EasyWeather altogether, initially it seams to work see first attached picture, but soon after, you start to get garbage data. So Cumulus 1.7.15 is not the solution at least not for me who is using a National Geographic 265NC weather station.

Marc

testcumulus1.7.15-2.gif

testcumulus1.7.15-3.gif

[GeniSim]

I am please to report that starting today September 1st, I am successfully using Cumulus 1.7.16 to directly interface my National Geographic 265NC weather station hence eliminating the need to run EasyWeather.

Congratulations Steve.

Marc

cumulus1.7.16.gif