Solar Radiation and a WH2081 Unit

[WestOz]

I've recently purchased a WH2081, after considering a WH3081 and deciding that the extra Solar Radiation and Sunshine hours measurments weren't worth paying twice as much for (poor broke pensioner )

I've just been doing some data tidying up using Cumulus Toolbox and noticed that there is now data in the "Maximun Solar Radiation" column of the Jan11log.txt file.

Question : If I change my station to "FineOffset with UV and Solar" on the Station Settings page will the Solar data show up and more importantly will changing the station type mess up my existing data.

Thanks

Ian

[steve]

I've just been doing some data tidying up using Cumulus Toolbox and noticed that there is now data in the "Maximun Solar Radiation" column of the Jan11log.txt file.

Cumulus always calculates max solar radiation now, based on your location, irrespective of whether you have a solar sensor or not.

Question : If I change my station to "FineOffset with UV and Solar" on the Station Settings page will the Solar data show up and more importantly will changing the station type mess up my existing data.

The solar data won't show up unless you have a station with a solar sensor, and changing to the wrong station type won't mess up your existing data, but will mess up your future data. The new Fine Offset station with solar sensor is not compatible with the old ones.

[WestOz]

Many thanks once again Steve.

[steve]

Actually, maybe I should clarify my statement about it always calculating max solar data, now I come to think about it, in case someone without a solar sensor decides they want to use it.

If you have a solar sensor, it will always calculate max solar radiation.

If you don't have a solar sensor, then it will calculate max solar radiation most of the time. There may be some circumstances (downloading logger data from some station types, for example) where it doesn't bother to do the calculation. It would have made the code unnecessarily complicated to try to cater for all situations.