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No doubt covered before but Fine Offset pressure is a PAIN

Discussion specific to Fine Offset and similar rebadged weather stations
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Cashpot
Posts: 9
Joined: Thu 11 Jul 2013 1:41 pm
Weather Station: Maplin
Operating System: XP
Location: Horsted Keynes

No doubt covered before but Fine Offset pressure is a PAIN

Post by Cashpot »

I am a reasonably articulate and intelligent computer and technology user. I have been using the Cumulus software for a couple of weeks and had a sum in my PayPal account that I was going to transfer to the author... but....

My Fine Offset receiver crashed and I had to remove the batteries and start again. Since then (and to be fair when I first set up Cumulus as well) I have been struggling to get the correct air pressure figures uploaded to the WOW site (and other sites too, but I prefer WOW).

The air pressure shows up as a nonesenese figure. Now I am able to ascertain my altitude so I cannot for the life of me see why Cumulus has to be so awkward as to require that I put in an offset figure which Cumulus is then meant to use to work back to my local air pressure. It seems that there is a whole block of code that could be dropped. The whole thing is a mess and just does not work!

Yes, I have read the FAQ, yes I have modified the ini - still I get nonesense from Cumulus despite my station giving me a correct local figure.

Why (this is my question) can't the Cumulus software take the reported local air pressure and simply upload that for me? Why does it ignore my elevation? (What a waste of time I wasted getting my height from a OS map.)

I have just been looking for alternative programmes to do the job for me - I am THAT fed up.

Pity (or perhaps I am just dumb) but I don't think so! It sort of reminds me of software written by a committee!
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steve
Cumulus Author
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Re: No doubt covered before but Fine Offset pressure is a PA

Post by steve »

I could answer your questions, but why should I? Did you seriously expect a helpful response to such a rude, abusive, and anonymous post?

Criticising the software is absolutely fine, of course it is; it's far from perfect, it has bugs, and there are some things that it could do better. Being offensive is not acceptable, however. And on this occasion the software is performing correctly, and it is you who is in error.

Goodbye, troll. Take your obnoxious behaviour somewhere else.
Steve
Cashpot
Posts: 9
Joined: Thu 11 Jul 2013 1:41 pm
Weather Station: Maplin
Operating System: XP
Location: Horsted Keynes

Re: No doubt covered before but Fine Offset pressure is a PA

Post by Cashpot »

I'm sorry if you found my original posting rude, it was not meant to be.

It was written late in the evening after a colleague and I had spent 4 hours trying to get the uploaded data to agree with the display on the screen (which was, is and has always been accurate).

We have now spent the batter part of the morning (when we should have been working on more profitable projects) attempting to get the Cumulus/Fine Offset setup working as it was before the Fine Offset station crashed. That crash quite obviously NOT being anything to do with your software. THAT is what is so annoying, it DID work for 10 days or more but now absolutely refuses to give meaningfull pressure data.

Perhaps you'd like to delete this thread after you have read it, we'll go our way and leave you in peace - or leave it up if you prefer.

No doubt you have spent many, many months on the project, but one that gives unreliable data (when used with one make of weather station anyway) is I believe a project that requires more work.

A troll I am not, direct I am (especially when tired and frustrated).

For that I apologise,


Roberto
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nitrx
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Re: No doubt covered before but Fine Offset pressure is a PA

Post by nitrx »

Cashpot wrote:but one that gives unreliable data (when used with one make of weather station anyway) is I believe a project that requires more work.
Fine Offset stations deliver unreliable data , Cumulus tries to scope with it but the sofware never can give better results that the weatherstation gives , if you are inconvenient with Cumulus just use the 'Easywwaethersoftware' that makes sense LOL
water01
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Re: No doubt covered before but Fine Offset pressure is a PA

Post by water01 »

Well speaking for myself, I have had a FineOffset connected to Cumulus since April 2011 and not once has it produced unreliable data, it can only be down to either a faulty FineOffset or you have set incorrect parameters within Cumulus.

Sorry but I think Steve called it right, so you will need to check you have set your pressure up correctly in the FineOffset, you Latitude/Longitude settings are correct or look at these Wiki items
http://wiki.sandaysoft.com/a/FAQ#My_pre ... creased.21
http://wiki.sandaysoft.com/a/FAQ#My_for ... itation.22
Also check the setup Units of measure http://wiki.sandaysoft.com/a/Setup

Ask Steve nicely if he has any other suggestions.
David
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mcrossley
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Re: No doubt covered before but Fine Offset pressure is a PA

Post by mcrossley »

My FO reached the point where the pressure reading was so far out that it couldn't be corrected by the automated calibration. I forget the details but I think it overflowed some field. It could be corrected by manually setting the offset in cumulus.ini but the correction was well over 100hPa.

Upshot, the FO pressure reading can be very unreliable. Mine had worked fine until I did a reset of the console. Then it jumped wildly, and would vary on station resets - though not every time.
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