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Newbie needs help! Barometer settings/readings
Posted: Fri 05 Nov 2010 6:36 am
by firedude52
Not sure if I'm in the right place. Didn't see a forum for Ambient and running the WS 2080. Here's my delima. All readings appear right on except Barometer. I'm trying to go Weather Wunderground, but Barometer constantly reads 29.88 in (aqbs) and shows falling very rapidly with a trend of -327.27 in/hr. ????? Todeay is 1st day and show max pressure of 1011.8!?
Station not listed (but shown as supported) so in setup I picked the fine/offset option
Station was set up to read Inches and I changed the default pressure extremes to a reasonable range for my local on the central coast of Calif (zip 93442)
Reads correctly in Easy Weather and as well reads relative vs abs
I wanna go live, but not witjh inaccurate Barometric readings. Any help guys??
Tony
Re: Newbie needs help! Barometer settings/readings
Posted: Fri 05 Nov 2010 8:09 am
by steve
firedude52 wrote:Not sure if I'm in the right place. Didn't see a forum for Ambient and running the WS 2080.
It's a rebadged Fine Offset, and listed as such in the 'supported devices' :
http://wiki.sandaysoft.com/a/Supported_Devices
All readings appear right on except Barometer. I'm trying to go Weather Wunderground, but Barometer constantly reads 29.88 in (aqbs) and shows falling very rapidly with a trend of -327.27 in/hr. ????? Todeay is 1st day and show max pressure of 1011.8!?
It looks like you have changed units in Cumulus between inHg and mb (or vice versa). You need to choose your units when you first run Cumulus and stick with them.
If you've now settled on your units, is Cumulus showing the correct sea level (relative) pressure currently? If not, have you configured your 'offset' correctly in the station? If you have, but Cumulus is showing the pressure without the offset, then this may apply:
http://wiki.sandaysoft.com/a/FAQ#Cumulu ... et_console
Re: Newbie needs help! Barometer settings/readings
Posted: Fri 05 Nov 2010 9:43 am
by wd40
Tony you are in the right place, I have a WS 2080 as well from Ambient Weather and it works very well with Cumulus.
Randy
Re: Newbie needs help! Barometer settings/readings
Posted: Fri 05 Nov 2010 2:41 pm
by firedude52
Steve..Thanks...You are correct Initially (not knowing what I was doing) went with default settings that came up and yes I changed the setting. Pays to red a bit carefully first time

Overnight things seemed to have stabilized and my relative now agrees with my 2080 console. Now does/can Cumulus read absolute? I see most Weather Underground Barometer readings in absolute like the fella a couple miles south of me on the beach and our readings were real close. He's a tad lower than I, but we're pretty much right on. This morning though he is reading abs of 29.93 whereas I'm showing 29.92.
Am I right in reading it says Easy Weather ad Cumulus should not be running the same time due to data type conflicts of sorts?
Everything else seems right on and getting prodded by locals to get this on Weather Underground asap. Will Weather Underground display my Barometric pressure as abs (as mos) or relative? I'll double check with Ed this morning at Ambient to insure I did in fact configured my 'offset' correctly in the station. I still may be a bit off and slightly confused on that issue. Old (57) retired fire captains sometime have brain fade

I believe it ti be fine though.
Thanks Randy! Yeah I like it! I'll definitely donate once I'm up and running and stable with my readings.
Re: Newbie needs help! Barometer settings/readings
Posted: Fri 05 Nov 2010 3:08 pm
by firedude52
One last dumb question here. On my Cumulus page the under the status section the "new record" green light sometime blinks green often, yet sometimes it doesn't blink at all. I thought maybe tis indicated the unit communicating with Cumulus or is it just when a new record in values somewhere are received? Thank gawd I haven't had the error light lol!
Tony
Re: Newbie needs help! Barometer settings/readings
Posted: Fri 05 Nov 2010 3:12 pm
by daj
Re: Newbie needs help! Barometer settings/readings
Posted: Fri 05 Nov 2010 3:26 pm
by firedude52
Thanks David! I figured as much. the old man is learning quick. I'll browse the FAQ's this morning so hopefully no more dumb questions. Great software tho by the way

Re: Newbie needs help! Barometer settings/readings
Posted: Fri 05 Nov 2010 5:38 pm
by firedude52

OK guys my apologies and I'm sure I confused everyone. For some reason in my mind I had absolute and relative backwards.

I've got it straight now and Cumulus is reading a correct relative reading based on the next nearest station down the road and we are just about the same as far as elevation and other factors.
The fact I live less than a 1/4 mile from the beach and probably no higher than 15-30' above sea level I've set both the rel and abs the same.
Obviously I hadn't had enough coffee and you guys jogged my dead brain cells. Thanks Steve for the offset setting remark.
Great forum and very nice software Steve! Thank you all and now to see if I can get set up with Weather Underground! I've set up a website by suggestion of the chamber and locals and even people as far away as Ohio and if you'd like a sneak preview the link is below. Any suggestions/input are welcome. Just use the contact link. I plan on an article for the folks at Ambient (Ed) who've been a great help and will do one on Sandaysoft/cumulus as well soon. Now to Weather Wunderground..............
Tony
http://morrobayweather.us/
Re: Newbie needs help! Barometer settings/readings
Posted: Fri 05 Nov 2010 8:09 pm
by steve
firedude52 wrote: I see most Weather Underground Barometer readings in absolute like the fella a couple miles south of me on the beach and our readings were real close.
If people are sending absolute pressure to WU, then they're doing it wrong. Absolute pressure is of no use meteorologically. Sea-level (relative) pressure is always used
Am I right in reading it says Easy Weather ad Cumulus should not be running the same time due to data type conflicts of sorts?
Yes; you can't connect two programs to the same weather station at the same time, everything gets confused.
Will Weather Underground display my Barometric pressure as abs (as mos) or relative?
It will display relative pressure; that's what Cumulus sends.
Re: Newbie needs help! Barometer settings/readings
Posted: Fri 05 Nov 2010 8:20 pm
by firedude52
Thanks Steve! All dialed in and waiting for Weather Underground to propagate my station. For some reason I had the relative and abs readings reversed in my age mind lol. All has been set properly and just waiting to go live, Thank you for all your help!! Now to look at the Cumulus features to put data on my website. I'll do some reading before I knee jerk any more dumb questions
Tony
Re: Newbie needs help! Barometer settings/readings
Posted: Fri 05 Nov 2010 9:01 pm
by wd40
Tony I did a lot of reading and still stumbled several times.
Cumulus is loaded with friendly user features and data graph and tabled in all manors of ways. A wonderful program as you are finding out. It will take a bit to fully understand the power of the program
The error light will come on sooner or later when the station and console stop communicating for one reason or another. Click on the light just like clicking on the record light to see what is going on.
Did you get the optional, larger, solar shield.
Randy
Re: Newbie needs help! Barometer settings/readings
Posted: Fri 05 Nov 2010 9:13 pm
by firedude52
Randy,
Yes I did go with the larger shield

I'm really enjoying the thing and once Weather Underground propagates me site it'll even be better. Did all that this morning and site was approved and all is well there. Yeah I've been prowling around the back end of Cumulus and looking at what I can do with and/or ad to my site from the WS. It'll give me something to do in the rain this weekend.
Something I'm not sure on yet and understand the 2080 has a self emptying rain gauge. Not sure how it works, but when does it empty? Midnight or? Same as with rainfall recording time?
Already dealt with the red light lol. The usb plug had hacked out a bit losing connection. Today I'm going to permanently (semi) mount the console. I have a hot rod netbook acting as a "dedicated IP hub" for now and eventually would like to get the hub so a computer is not required to be on. The netbook is seldom used to at least it isn't going to waste!
We get some pretty hefty storms 2 or 3 times a year here on the beach so I'm anxious to see how it holds up. I have it all secured pretty good and good height along with good guy wires so we'll see. Not unusual for us to get sustained winds of 35-45 with gusts even as high as 60 so can't wait to see how it performs.
Re: Newbie needs help! Barometer settings/readings
Posted: Fri 05 Nov 2010 9:47 pm
by wd40
Gina took one apart with some great photos.
https://cumulus.hosiene.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=2685
You will see one bucket fills, tilts down and empties while the one on the other side fills then a switch counts how many times the bucket tilts.
Randy
Re: Newbie needs help! Barometer settings/readings
Posted: Sat 06 Nov 2010 12:37 am
by firedude52
Great info Randy and thanks! Question for y'all........ On Weather Underground forecast pages like the 2 we have nearby it says clear yet it's been foggy for over almost 2 hours w/ 1/4 mile visibility. Who and how does this get updated by?