Rain & xAP

[Rulen]

Hello - Forgive me if I am doing something stupid (I'm very new to both Cumulus and xAP), but despite tipping quite a lot of water into my weather station (Fine Offset) I don't seem to be getting any rain info in Cumulus' xAP messages. What am I doing wrong?

(I'm trying to set up an xAP app that will alert me if rainfall goes over a pre-specified level within a pre-specified time period so that I can check the river and maybe open the sluice gates! Particularly during the small hours.)

Thanks in advance,

Nick

[steve]

There's no rainfall data in the current format of an xAP weather report:

http://www.xapautomation.org/index.php? ... her_Schema

Steve

[Rulen]

Ah well, no worries, I will just have to keep an eye on the river as normal. If it could be added to a future release that would be fantastic. Regardless, may I take this opportunity to thank you for your excllent Cumulus software.

Nick

[steve]

I could add rain very easily, but it's not in the protocol. I guess what we need to do is propose an extension to the protocol - the xAP group do seem interested in expanding it.

Steve

[Rulen]

That would be great. How can I help (I am a bit out of my depth here)?
Nick

[steve]

I am a bit out of my depth here

Me too

I'll find the last email I had about this and see what they were saying about expanding the protocol.

Steve

[wheelbarrow]

HI,

I posted a message to the XAP development team and got this reply.

Does this help you Steve to add rain fall to the Xap message.

"
Hi Paul

Thw WeatherDisplay program has alredy modified the schema by adding a "rain=" parameter as in the following message

xap-header
{
v=12
hop=1
uid=FF400200
class=Weather.Report
source=windy.weather.1
}
Weather.Report
{
humidity=53
tempf=58.6
extrahum2=-100
tempc=14.8
icon=Sunny
winddirc=S
windm= 6
extrahum1=-100
windk=10
extrahum3=-100
date=20090404
utc=15:56:48
rain=0.0
extratemp1=-100.0
extratemp2=-100.0
extratemp3=-100.0
airpressure=1014.7
}

So this could be added as an optional parameter?

Cheers

KevinT

"

Regards

Paul

[steve]

Thanks - I can certainly add that; what does the rain figure represent? Rain since midnight?

Steve

[wheelbarrow]

Hi Steve,

I dont know that. I guess it may be the rain fall since the last message.

Do you want me to post a reply to the xap group

http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/xap_automation/

Regards

Paul

[wheelbarrow]

Hi Steve,

Been a while,

Can you add the rainfall= to the xap message and put in the same data that goes in the twitter message.

Regards

Paul

[steve]

Yes, that's easy enough. So that's the rain so far today, taking into account the station's meteorological day.

[wheelbarrow]

Great,

That will allow me to control the garden watering system.

Thanks


Paul

[steve]

The other parameters have a units qualifier, e.g. tempc and tempf, but this unofficial one doesn't. What units is it supposed to use?

[wheelbarrow]

Hi Steve,

mm is the normal here, user can the do conversion if required.

Regards

Paul

[steve]

OK, I'll assume mm. I'd be much happier if this was in the spec and properly documented, though