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GETWX10.EXE Chris Seeber 255 Carolina Back Rd. Charlestown, RI 02813 Information Resource System BBS (401) 539-8636 South Shore BBS (401) 364-9788 November 29, 1990 CONTENTS Chapter Title Page 1...........Introduction....................................2 2...........Notation used in this Document..................2 3...........Program Names...................................3 5...........GETWX10.EXE.....................................4 Start-up.......................................4 Configuring Your System........................5 Screen Explanation.............................8 Routine Observations...........................11 Midnight Routine - Daily.......................11 Midnight Routine - Monthly.....................13 Function Keys..................................13 6...........ID5SHORT.EXE....................................16 7...........ASCII file descriptions.........................18 8 ..........Memory Requirement Summary......................23 9...........Disk Space Requirements.........................23 10...........Operation with Multi-tasking Software...........25 11...........Troubleshooting.................................26 12...........Automatic commands..............................27 13...........Disclaimer......................................30 14...........Acknowledgements................................31 15...........Order Form......................................31 -1- INTRODUCTION GETWX is a program written to communicate with the Heath Model ID5001 Weather Computer. It automatically sends commands to the ID5001 and retrieves the results. The results are displayed on the screen. They are also saved to disk, on a directory that you choose, at intervals that you choose. As the readings are stored to disk, they are scrolled up the screen, so you can observe the observations over the last few hours. There are also provisions for the user to insert observations manually, to add remarks to the data on the disk, and to display past observations. The user can determine the serial port to use, the baud rate of the communication link, and the disk drive and directory he (she) would like the data files saved on. The program is fairly small in size for use in multi-tasking systems such as Desqview. There are also a number of other functions to calculate high, low, and average readings. NOTATION USED IN THIS DOCUMENT There are a few notation conventions that you should remember when reading this document. The following abbreviations are used: YY This is referencing the year with two digits. I.E. If the year was 1990, YY would be 90. If the year was 1994, YY would be 94. If the year was 2010, YY would be 10. MM is the month number represented by two digits. January would be 01, while November would be 11. DD is the number of the day. Example: If June 12, 1990 was to be represented in the format YYMMDD, the representation would read 900612. If it was to be represented in the format MM-DD-YY, it would read 06-12-90. -2- A <> surrounding a word means to press the key's name that appears between the < and >. Example: If the document stated press <ENTER>, it means to press the enter key on the keyboard. On some keyboards, the <ENTER> key may be labeled <RETURN>. A [] surrounding a word means that the word between the [ and ] is a variable. It should be replaced by an appropriate word. Example: If the document stated insert [filename] at the prompt, you should insert the name of the file where [filename] appears in the Doc. Do not include the [ or ] in the command you type. PROGRAM NAMES The following programs should be included in getwx1.zip packet: GETWX10.EXE Main program ID5SHORT GETWX program of reduced size with reduced capabilities. GETWX10.DOC Documentation. If any of these programs are missing, please contact the author. The following files are created by GETWX10 while it is operating: YYMMDD.OBS This is the file where the observations are saved. It is updated every 10, 30, or 60 minutes, depending on your choice. GUSTFILE This is a temporary file that is used by the program. No useful information is stored here for the user. It is where the high gust information is stored whenever an observation is saved in YYMMDD.OBS. It is erased each night a midnight. -3- MM-YY.AVG This file contains average information for each day. It is updated at midnight. MM-YY.TEM High and low information for pressure and temperature are stored here. This file is updated each night at midnight. MM-YY.HUM High and low information for humidity is stored here. Updated each night at midnight. MM-YY.WND High and low information for wind is stored here. Updated each night at midnight. In each case above, YY stands for the year, MM stands for the month, and DD stands for the day. I.e. 900612.OBS would contain the routine observations for June 12, 1990. 06-90.AVG would contain the average readings taken for the month of June, 1990. GETWX10.EXE Start-up GETWX10.EXE is the heart of the system. After you have set up your configuration to match your system the first time you run the program, all you have to do is type GETWX10, and the program will begin. It takes about 30 seconds for the program to start. You may bypass this 30 second wait time by pressing <N> when the configuration screen is present. If this is the first time you're starting this program, you should read the next paragraph "Configuring Your System" before you go any further. If you don't, at least, configure your communication settings properly, or else your computer may crash, and you'll have to reboot it. Once the configuration process is terminated, and the program is running, no user intervention is necessary, and the program will continue running indefinitely. -4- Configuring Your System There are a number of options in the opening screen to configure your system to your liking. The following options are available: 1. Color on 7 different parts of the screen. 2. Communications rate with the ID5001. 3. The communications port you are using on your PC to communicate with the ID5001. 4. The disk drive and directory you want your weather data files stored in. 5. The interval of which you want your observations taken. Once you have chosen the configuration, it will be stored in the GETWX10 program, so the next time you start the program, you won't have to reconfigure anything unless you want to change something. When you first start the program up, your present configurations will be displayed on the screen, along with a message asking you if you want to change anything, or leave them as they are. There is also a count - down timer near the bottom center of the screen telling you how long you have to respond before the program starts itself with your present configuration settings. You have about 30 seconds to respond to the prompt. If you respond <N>, the configuration mode will exit, and the observation part of the program will start running. The configuration defaults, as sent with the disk before you change anything are: All colors : white on black Communications port : COM1 Baud : 9600 Directory : C:\wx\ Observation intervals : Every 10 minutes If you type <Y> to the prompt, you will enter the configuration menu. The first question will ask you what color you want your main screen color to be. This is the area of the screen where past observations go from row 4 to row 23. -5- Move the square around on the color menu with the arrow keys until you find a color that you want. When you've chosen the color, press <ENTER> to select it. The next question will appear on the right half of the bottom line of the display, asking you what color you want the soft key readout to be. The soft-key readout is displayed along the bottom line of the display and shows you the user intervention features that are possible. Move the square around the color menu in the same fashion you did for the main screen color. The next question will be displayed on the left half of the bottom line, and will ask you what color you want the F Keys to be in. The F Keys tell you what F key to press to invoke the user intervention features. For example: F1: Remarks ^^^ ^^^ F Key Soft-key The next color to change will be the present weather color. This is on the second to the bottom row of the display, and will continuously show the present weather as reported by the ID5001. The next color is the status color, and the prompt will be in the right half of the top line of the screen. This area of the screen tells you what mode the program is in. This section is explained further in the Options section of this manual. The next prompt will appear in the left half of the top line of the display. It will ask you for the color you want the date to be. The date of the display is always displayed in the top left corner of the screen. The last color prompt will appear in the left half of the second line of the display. It will ask for the colors you want the titles or headers to be in. These are displayed on the 2nd and 3rd rows of the display to label the values in each column. At this point, you will be shown the finished color configuration of the screen, and will be asked if you want to <C>ontinue (move to the next configuration menu), <R>eturn (start at the beginning color configuration menu again), or <Q>uit (exit the program). Type <C>, <R>, or <Q> depending on your choice. If you chose <C>ontinue, a prompt will come up on the screen asking you for the baud of the communications link between the ID5001 and your PC. Enter the number here that matches what you have your ID5001 set at for baud. You may enter any number that the ID5001 supports. The choices are 110, 300, 600, 1200, 2400,4800, and 9600. If you don't answer with one of these numbers, the prompt will be repeated. Be sure your ID5001 is set up for the same speed, otherwise the program will hang up and you'll have to reboot your computer. -6- I would suggest that you use the 9600 baud speed, as this will allow the program to run at it's fullest potential. However, if you have an extremely fast computer, the system may not work, and you may have to slow the rate down a little. You may simply hit <RETURN> if you want to use the default speed which is displayed at the prompt. After you have chosen the baud, you will be asked for a COM port. This is the serial port number on your computer that you have connected the ID5001 to. COM1, COM2, COM3, and COM4 are supported, however, COM3 and COM4 have not been tested at this time and there may be interrupt problems when trying to use them. If COM3 or COM4 don't work, you'll have to restrict yourself to COM1 or COM2. If you choose any number other than 1, 2, 3, or 4, you'll be asked the question again. You may enter <RETURN> to use the default COM port which is displayed at the prompt. After you have chosen the COM port, you will be asked to choose a directory where you want your data stored. You must enter it in the form [Drive]:[Directory]\[sub-directory]\[sub-directory]. This is the directory where all your .OBS, .TEM, .HUM, .AVG, and .WND files are stored. (See the file descriptions in the paragraph above). If the directory doesn't exist, it will be created. If it does exist, you will be told it exists, and will be asked if you want to use it. Type <Y> or <N> (for yes or no respectively) at the prompt. The final configuration question asks you how often you want your routine observations saved to disk. You may choose every 10 minutes (A), every 1/2 hour (B), or once every hour, on the hour (C). After you have made this choice, you will be shown the configurations that you have chosen, along with the amount of disk space you have on the disk you chose when you chose the directory. You will be asked if you want to <R>econfigure, <C>ontinue, or <Q>uit. If you choose <R>, you will be returned to the prompt asking you what baud you want to communicate at, and will continue with the prompts following it. If you choose <Q>, the program will exit back to DOS. If you choose <C>, you will receive another prompt asking if you want to save your configuration to disk. If you answer <N>o, the program will begin running with the configurations that you just chose. However, if you terminate the program, the configurations that you chose will be lost. If you answer <Y>es, the configurations that you chose will be stored in the GETWX10 program. Now, if you terminate the program and restart it, the configurations that you chose will be the default configurations the next time you start the program. -7- I recommend that the first time you run the configuration, to answer <Y> to this lat prompt, so the program will be set up to work within the parameters of your system the next time you start it up. This is particularly useful if you have a power failure and you have your autoexec.bat file configured to start GETWX when the computer is booted up. Now that we have the program configured, we can look at the different components of the program itself. Screen Explanation At the top left corner of the screen is the date that is being read from the ID5001. If you have manually put readings on the screen from a different day (see Function Key chapter under F5), another date will be displayed after the present date. This other date is labeled "Displayed Date", and is the date of the readings that are displayed on the screen. Notice that the observations on the bottom line are still the actual observations. At the top right center of the screen, various messages appear telling you what the program is doing. For normal operation, there will be two numbers blinking on and off. Each time the ID5001 is polled for information, this display will flash on and off. The first number shows the amount of free RAM (in bytes) you have available in your system after GETWX has loaded up. This is useful for setting up a multi - tasking program. The second number represents the amount of free disk space in bytes you have on the disk where you're storing your observations. This number is updated whenever an observation is stored to the disk. If this number drops below 2000 bytes (2K), a warning message will be displayed, and an alarm will sound. Other messages will be explained in the Options paragraph. The second and third lines contain the information that is displayed in the respective columns. The units that are displayed vary according to how you have the units set on the ID5001. Column 1: Time. This is the time that the ID5001 is sending to the program. It does not depend on the PC's system clock. This will always display the time in the 24 hour format. 08:00 will be 8:00 AM. 12:00 will be 12 noon. 13:00 will be 1:00PM. 23:00 will be 11:00 PM. 00:00 will be midnight. -8- Column 2: Pressure Val. This is the atmospheric pressure reading as displayed on the ID5001. Although the units are not displayed, you can change them by changing them on the ID5001. The ID5001 can display them in mb. or inches. To change the units, touch the "PRESSURE" and "UNITS" keys at the same time on the ID5001 to toggle between mb. and inches. Column 3: Pressure Ten. This is the tendency of the pressure as calculated by the ID5001. This number is the calculated rate of change per hour. Column 4: Temperatures Out. This is the outside temperature reading. Although the units are not displayed, you can change them on the ID5001. The ID5001 can display them in degrees Celsius or degrees Fahrenheit. To change the units touch the "TEMPERATURE" and "UNITS" keys on the ID5001 at the same time. The display on the ID5001 will toggle between C and F. Column 5: Temperatures Ten. This is the outside temperature tendency as calculated by the ID5001. This number is the calculated rate of change per hour. Column 6: Temperatures In. This is the inside temperature reading. The same rules apply, in regards to the units that are used, that apply to the outside temperature readings. Column 7: Temperatures Ten. This is the inside temperature tendency as calculated by the ID5001. This number is the calculated rate of change per hour. Column 8: Humidity Out. This is the outdoor relative humidity reading. The units are always in percent. Since the humidity sensors are only accurate from 32 degrees F to 122 degrees F, and between 10% and 43% +/- 10 counts, there may be times when the reading exceeds 100%. The ID5001 drops the first digit if the humidity is above 99%. I.e. If the humidity reading is 104%, the ID5001 will only display 04%. GETWX displays all three digits, or, as in this example, would display 104. (Although this is actually impossible to achieve, if the humidity sensor is not calibrated properly, you may get a reading here greater than 100%.) Column 9: Humidity Ten. This is the outdoor relative humidity tendency as calculated by the ID5001. This number is the calculated rate of change per hour. Column 10: Humidity In. This is the indoor relative humidity. The units are always in percent. The same rules apply for humidities greater than 100% as apply for the outdoor humidity readings. (see Column 8's explanation). Column 11: Humidity Ten. This is the indoor relative humidity tendency as calculated by the ID5001. This number is the calculated rate of change per hour. -9- Column 12: Wind Dir. This is the average wind direction as calculated by the ID5001. There are no built in corrections for converting to degrees true or degrees magnetic. This depends on how you oriented your anemometer when you installed it. This reading is always in degrees from north rounded to the nearest 10 degrees. It is the average wind direction for the preceding 60 seconds. Column 13: Wind Avg. This is the average wind speed as calculated by the ID5001. The units can be in miles per hour, knots, or kilometers per hour depending on the way you have the units set up on the ID5001. To change the units, touch the "WIND" and "UNITS" keys on the ID5001 repeatedly until you see the units that you want to use displayed in the compass rose on the LCD. The units are not displayed on the GETWX screen. The number shown here is the average wind speed for the preceding 60 seconds. Column 14: Wind Gst. This reading means two things when viewed on the screen. On the bottom line, it displays the wind gust, as calculated by the ID5001, at the present time. As the observations are saved at the interval you chose during configuration, the saved observation scrolls up the screen. The reading here indicates the highest gust since the previous saved observation. The same rules for units apply as for the Wind Avg column (see explanation under Column 13). The number on the bottom line is the gust during the previous 1 second. Column 15: Wind Chill. This is the present wind chill as calculated by the ID5001. It is calculated using the outdoor temperature reading, and the wind gust speed. The same rules apply to the units as apply for outdoor temperature. (See explanation in Column 4.) Column 16: Precip. Amnt. This is a running total of the precipitation for the current month. It is automatically reset to 0.00 at midnight on the last day of the month. The units may be in inches or in centimeters as selected on the ID5001. To change the units, touch the "RAIN" and "UNITS" keys together on the ID5001 and you will see the units toggle between cm and in on the LCD display. The units are not displayed on the GETWX screen. If you are using centimeters, the GETWX program will round off two decimal places. (Note that on the ID5001 these units are read out to three decimal places). Note that this is the precipitation that has melted into the rain gauge. If it is snowing, and you don't have the equipment on your rain gauge to melt the snow, no precipitation will be recorded until the snow melts. Column 17: Precip. Rate. This displays the instantaneous rain rate at the time the GETWX program polls the ID5001. It is the rate, as calculated by the ID5001, of precipitation based on the time between two previous pulses from the rain gauge. The same rules apply to the units as for Precip Amnt (See Column 16 for explanation). -10- On the very bottom line of the display, different options are displayed, along with the number of the function key to press to invoke that option. See Function Keys for a description of what these keys do. Routine Observations Depending on the interval option you chose during configuration, a reading will be saved to the disk and directory you chose. If you chose every 10 minutes, the observation will be saved at 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 minutes past each hour, as well as on the hour. If you chose every 30 minutes, the observations will be saved at half past the hour and on the hour. If you chose every hour, the observations will be saved once each hour, on the hour. The Wind Gst column contains the value of the highest gust since the last observation was saved. When the observation is saved, the high gust value is reset on the weather computer, and the high gust, along with it's time and direction, since the last observation, is saved in an auxiliary ASCII file called GUSTFILE in your data directory. The values in the GUSTFILE file are used for retrieving the high gust for the day when the high and low information is gathered at midnight. Midnight Routine - Daily Each night at midnight, a number of events occur. First, the message at the top right corner of the screen will change to "Recording high and low readings". Then, the ID5001 is polled for all it's high and low information. This includes pressure, temperature, humidity, and average wind speed. In addition, the GUSTFILE is read and sorted to find the highest gust that occurred that day. This information is then put into the files MM-YY.TEM, MM-YY.HUM, and MM-YY.WND. The information is also shown on the screen. After this information has been obtained, all the high and low information (except for the high wind gust) is reset on the ID5001. Then, the message at the top right corner of the screen changes to "Calculating averages". The program then goes through the YYMMDD.OBS file and calculates the average pressure, temperatures, humidities, wind, and precipitation rate for the day. -11- This information is put into the MM-YY.AVG file. GETWX also finds out the amount of precipitation that fell that day and puts it into the YY-MM.AVG file. If the MM-YY.TEM, MM-YY.HUM, MM-YY.WND, or MM-YY.AVG files do not exist, they are created. After the averages are calculated and saved, a new YYMMDD.OBS file is created and the first observation for the following day is made. At this point, the GUSTFILE is erased, and a new one is created to save the high gust information, throughout the day, for the next midnight routine. After this, the program makes it's pre - configured interval observations until midnight of the following night. If you miss a midnight routine, several problems will arise. First, the high and low information will not be reset in the ID5001. The next time a midnight routine occurs, the high and low information will reflect highs and lows since the last midnight routine occurred, or since the last time you manually reset the high and low information on the ID5001. Since GETWX is designed to operate constantly, the dates of high and low information are not saved from the ID5001. Instead, they are stored in the proper row of the MM-YY.TEM, MM-YY.HUM, and YY-MM.WND files. If you miss a midnight routine, the next time a midnight routine runs, you will have high and low information since the previous midnight routine occurred. These will all be saved to the date that the current midnight routine is in. If you miss a midnight routine, it will be necessary to manually record the high and low information from the ID5001 and manually reset the high and low readings on the ID5001. You must then manually insert these readings in the MM-YY.TEM, MM-YY.HUM, and MM-YY.WND files. Since these files are standard ASCII text files, you can modify them with any text editor. The second problem you run into is that the GUSTFILE file will not be erased. Since this file gets an entry put into it every time a observation is recorded, the file will contain about 1440 entries for each day (assuming you are using a 10 minute interval). Since GETWX was designed to be small, the memory requirements for reading more than one day's worth of gustfile readings may be exhausted. Depending on the amount of memory you have available for GETWX to work in, you may run into a problem if GUSTFILE isn't erased at midnight. If you have too many entries in GUSTFILE, the program will terminate. See the GUSTFILE chapter for more details. The third problem is that the observations won't be averaged for the day. I am working on an external program to average the readings in case this happens. -12- Midnight Routine - Monthly Once a month, the filenames must be changed. At midnight on the last day of the month, new MM-YY.TEM, MM-YY.HUM, MM-YY.WND, and MM-YY.AVG files are created to reflect the new month. In addition, the Precip. Amnt. is reset on the ID5001 to 0.00. All the other events that happen during the daily midnight routine also occur. (See Midnight Routine - Daily). Function Keys The function keys allow the user to interact with GETWX. F1: Remarks. Pressing this key allows you to enter remarks in the YYMMDD.OBS file. You may type up to 126 characters in the remark. Remarks may include such things as precipitation type, cloud cover, visibility, or anything else you want to put in. When you press <F1>, you will see a message in the top right corner of the screen that says "Enter your remarks (Up to 126 characters):". This message tells you that you are in the remarks mode. Polling of the ID5001 will stop until you are done. When you hit the <ENTER> key, the time of the entry is appended to the beginning of the remark. This information is displayed on the screen, and is also saved in the YYMMDD.OBS file. The remark you type will automatically be scrolled down one line at a time. DO NOT PUSH THE <ENTER> KEY UNTIL YOU ARE FINISHED WITH THE REMARK! If you do, you must press F1 again to continue the remark. Your remarks will truncate at the end of the line with no respect to end of words. The word will just be continued on the next line. For this reason, it might be better to use multiple F1 strokes and keep each one about 65 characters long. After you have pressed <ENTER>, the program will resume polling the ID5001 automatically. F2: End. Pressing this key will halt the program. You will hear a few warning beeps from the PC's speaker and a line will be displayed on the screen telling you that you halted the program and the time that it was halted. -13- F3: Special Pressing this key will poll the ID5001 for an observation, even if it is not at the automatic observation time. Use this key if a weather condition exists that you want to save and you don't think it will exist at the next automatic observation time. Pressing this key will do everything that the automatic observations do, except it will not reset the high gust value on the ID5001. The only time this value is reset is during an automatic observation. Once the observation has been saved, GETWX will automatically resume polling the ID5001. F4: Hi-Lo. Pressing this hey will give you a readout on the display of the high and low information that has been saved by the ID5001 since the last midnight routine took place (See Midnight Routine - Daily above). It will also calculate and display the average values that have been saved on the YYMMDD.OBS file since the beginning of the present day. Nothing will be saved to the disk using this key. F5: Display. Pressing this allows you to review past data obtained by the GETWX program. When you press this key, you will be shown a brief explanation of what to type in, and a menu of choices. The message at the top right of your screen will change to "Display mode". Different menus will appear depending on what you entered for a date. After the explanation on the screen, you will be prompted to enter a date. You must enter the date in the correct format as described in the paragraph on the screen. That is, if you want to see daily observations, you must enter the date in the format MM-DD-YY. To see the present day's observations, just hit <ENTER>. To see the high, low, or average readings for a month, you must enter the date as MM-YY. In both instances, you must separate the day (in the case of a daily observation request), month, and year by a <-> (dash). If you enter a daily date, ( or hit <ENTER> without a date), a menu will show up asking if you want to see all the observations, only observations on the half hour, or only observations made on the hour. Type in the number that corresponds to your choice and the information you requested will scroll down the screen. -14- The information will not stop until it reaches the end of the observations, so you may want to use your PC's <PAUSE> or <CTRL><NUM LOCK> keys to pause the display. Notice that the date in the top left corner of the display will remain at today's date, followed by the date that is displayed on the screen. It might be a good idea, after you have stopped viewing, to press <F5><ENTER><1> to get the present day's observations back on the screen to eliminate confusion. If you enter a monthly date, you will be prompted whether you want to see the high and low information for the month, or the average information for the month. Type in the number that corresponds to your choice and the information you requested will scroll down the screen. If you chose high and low information, you will be shown the high and low pressure and temperature information first. The scrolling will stop at the end of this information, and you will be prompted to hit <ENTER> to see the next screen. The next screen will contain the high and low humidity records, and at the end, will prompt you to hit <ENTER> again to see the next screen. After you have hit <ENTER> again, the high and low wind information will scroll down the screen. After this information is displayed, you will be prompted to hit <ENTER> again to continue. After you hit <ENTER> this time, the program will erase the screen, and will return to it's normal polling functions. DON'T FORGET TO HIT <ENTER> AFTER YOU HAVE REVIEWED THE WIND INFORMATION, BECAUSE THE PROGRAM WILL NOT POLL THE ID5001 FOR THE ROUTINE OBSERVATIONS UNTIL YOU DO! If the date you have chosen is not in the directory that you assigned during configuration, you will be greeted by a message that tells you the information is not available. Remember that the ID5001 will not be polled until you are done. The message at the top right corner of the screen will change back to the RAM and disk sizes when it is polling again. -15- F6: Print This option is not available at this time. To print out observations, high - low information, or average information, you can use any text editor's print command. If you don't own a text editor, you may use DOS. To use DOS, first make sure you are at the DOS prompt, and you are in the directory that your weather data files are located. Then, type the following command: Copy [filename] > PRN This will send the information from [filename] to your printer. If you want to print daily observations, substitute YYMMDD.OBS for [filename] in the above command. To print the high and low pressure and temperature information, substitute MM-YY.TEM for [filename] in the above command. To print high and low humidity readings, substitute MM-YY.HUM for [filename]. To print high and low wind readings, substitute MM-YY.WND for [filename]. To print the calculated average information, substitute MM-YY.AVG for [filename]. ID5SHORT.EXE ID5SHORT.EXE is a abbreviated version of GETWX. It is much smaller than GETWX, and only makes the 10 minute routine observations that GETWX makes. It is designed to be loaded into memory, temporarily, using a multi-tasking system. It is very limited in what it can do, but if you are using a multi- -tasking system, you can load ID5SHORT up without taking a lot of valuable RAM space up. It has a number of drawbacks from GETWX. 1). It does not do any of the midnight routines. It is very important that you exit from ID5SHORT, and reload GETWX before the midnight routines occur. -16- 2). It will only work on COM1. If you have your ID5001 attached to any other COM port on your PC, it won't function. 3). You can not run GETWX and ID5SHORT at the same time. 4). It does not have any of the function key support. The user cannot interact with this program in any way. To exit the program, you must hit <CTRL><BREAK>. 5). It will save the observations to disk at 10 minute intervals only. To start ID5SHORT, you must enter some options on the DOS command line. The form of the command is: ID5SHORT [baud] [COM port] [directory] The [baud] parameter designates the baud rate you have your ID5001 set for. The [COM port] parameter designates the COM port you have your ID5001 connected to on your PC. The [directory] parameter refers to the directory you want to save your observation files in. For example, if you wanted to communicate through your PC's Com port COM1 at 9600 baud, and you wanted your observations saved in the wx directory of drive C, you would enter the following to start ID5SHORT: ID5SHORT 9600 1 c:\wx\ You must separate each parameter with a space. You must also be sure you include the drive letter, followed by a colon, as well as putting in a "\" at the end of the directory parameter. In order to keep this program as small as possible, there are no checks incorporated into it to check your parameters. If you enter the wrong comport or baud, the program will probably hang and you'll have to reboot. If you enter the directory parameter improperly, the program may run until the program attempts to save an observation to disk. At this point, depending on what was incorrect in the parameter, the program may hang, or the data may be stored on your disk in the wrong directory. For these reasons, make sure you have entered the parameters correctly. The only thing the ID5SHORT does is display the present conditions and save the 10 minute observations to the disk. However, it only uses 20K of RAM, and allows you to run large programs in another window of a multi-tasking program. -17- ASCII FILE DESCRIPTIONS There are six standard ASCII files that the GETWX program creates and uses. You may modify any of these files, externally, by using an external text editor. I will not attempt to show you how to use a text editor in this document. There are numerous good shareware and a few public domain text editors on the market. You can also use DOS's edlin editor, although it is rather cumbersome. Each file is named so as to describe the date (in the case of YYMMDD.OBS) or month (in the case of MM-YY.TEM, MM-YY.HUM, MM-YY.WND, and MM-YY.AVG) that the readings are for. If you want to do your own manipulating of the files for graphing or other purposes, the way the file is set up will be helpful to know. Each file is set up as a series of one line strings followed by a carriage return / line feed. The individual numbers in each row are all contained in one string. Each number is separated by spaces. If you attempt to import the file into a program like Lotus 1-2-3, you must parse the file to separate the strings into individual numbers. Following are descriptions of each of the files that GETWX create and save it's information to. YYMMDD.OBS This file contains all the routine observations. A new YYMMDD.OBS file is created every day. If the file has observed all the observations possible in a day (144), the size of this file will be 11,327 bytes long. Each time you make a special entry, or add a remark, you make this file longer. The format of the file is exactly the same as what shows up on your screen when the program is running (see the screen explanation in the GETWX10.EXE chapter). I do not recommend editing this file unless you have made a mistake on a remark entry. The average calculations are based on this file and it is imperative that all the numbers remain in their proper columns. MM-YY.AVG This file contains the average readings as calculated by GETWX. This file, when containing 31 days worth of averages, is approximately 2,680 bytes long. -18- Column 1: # This is the number of entries from the YYMMDD.OBS file that were averaged. This helps you decide if the figures represent good averages or not. If you only had 20 observations during the day, and you had configured GETWX to save the observations every 10 minutes, you would know that this is probably not an accurate number to use. Column 2: Day. The day of the month the averages were calculated for. Notice that the month and the year are displayed in the top left corner of the file. Column 3: Pressure This is the average pressure for the day. Column 4: Temperatures Out. Average outdoor temperature. Column 5: Temperatures In. Average indoor temperature. Column 6: Humidity Out. Average outdoor humidity. Column 7: Humidity In. Average Indoor humidity. Column 8: Winds Dir. This is the average direction of wind direction reading from the YYMMDD.OBS file. This is the average of the average wind that was recorded at each automatic observation. Column 9: Winds Avg. This is the average speed of the average wind as recorded in the YYMMDD.OBS file. Column 10: Winds Gust. This is the average speed of the high wind gusts that were recorded in the YYMMDD.OBS file. Column 11: Wind Chill. Average wind chill. Column 12: Rain Total. This is the total amount of melted precipitation for the day. Column 13: Rain rate. The average rate of precipitation as recorded in the YYMMDD.OBS file. -19- MM-YY.TEM This file contains the high and low information for pressure and temperature. The file will be approximately 2,447 bytes long for 31 days worth of observations. The high and low information recorded reflects the first occurrence of the high or low reading during the day. Column 1: Day. This is the day of the month the high and low information is for. Notice the month and year are in the top left corner of the screen. Column 2: Pressure Hi. The high pressure for the day. Column 3: Pressure Time. The time of day the high pressure occurred. Column 4: Pressure Lo The low pressure for the day. Column 5: Pressure Time The time of day the low pressure occurred. Column 6: Outdoor Temp Hi The high outdoor temperature. Column 7: Outdoor temp time The time of the high outdoor temperature. Column 8: Outdoor Temp Lo The low outdoor temperature. Column 9: Outdoor Temp Time The time of the low outdoor temperature. Column 10: Indoor Temp Hi The high indoor temperature. Column 11: Indoor temp time The time of the high indoor temperature. Column 12: Indoor temp lo The low indoor temperature. Column 13: Indoor temp time The time of the low indoor temperature. MM-YY.HUM This file contains the high and low humidity information for a month. This file is approximately 1,417 bytes long for 31 days worth of readings. The high and low information reflects the first occurrence of the high or low reading for the day. Column 1: Day. This is the day that the high and low readings were recorded for. Notice the month and year are in the top left corner of the screen. -20- Column 2: Outdoor Hum High The high outdoor humidity. Column 3: Outdoor hum time The time that the high humidity was reached. Column 4: Outdoor hum low The low outdoor humidity Column 5: Outdoor Hum Time The time that the low humidity was reached. Column 6: Indoor Hum High The high indoor humidity. Column 7: Indoor Hum Time The time that the high indoor humidity occurred. Column 8: Indoor Hum low The low indoor humidity. Column 9: Indoor hum time The time that the low humidity was reached. MM-YY.WND This file contains the high and low information for winds for the month. This file is approximately 1,894 bytes long for 31 days worth of information. The high and low information recorded reflects the first occurrence in the day of the high or low event. Column 1 : Day This is the day the high and low information was recorded for. Notice the month and year appear in the top left corner of the screen. Column 2: Average Wind High This is the high average wind reading for the day. Column 3: Average wind frm This is the direction the highest recorded average wind was blowing from. Column 4: Average wind Time This is the time the highest average wind was recorded. Column 5: Average wind low This is the low average wind reading for the day. Column 6: Average wind frm This is the direction the lowest recorded average wind was blowing from. Column 7: Average wind time This is the time the low average wind was recorded. Column 8: Gust Wind High This is the high wind gust for the day. -21- Column 9: Gust wind frm This is the direction the highest recorded wind gust was blowing from. Column 10: Gust wind time This is the time of the high wind gust. Column 11: Gust Wind Low. This is the low wind gust for the day. Column 12: Gust wind frm This is the direction the lowest recorded wind gust was blowing from. Column 13: Gust wind time. This is the time of the lowest wind gust. GUSTFILE This file contains information that is used by the GETWX program at midnight. IT SHOULD NOT BE ALTERED! This file, at the end of the day will be approximately 1,932 bytes long. It will automatically be erased at midnight, after GETWX gets the information from it that it needs. It will then be re-created, and a new GUSTFILE will be started. It is important that GUSTFILE be erased at midnight (GETWX does this automatically for you), because the file will continue to grow as observations are being made. GETWX has a limit to how many entries can be held in GUSTFILE. The limit is dependent on how much memory you give GETWX. If you are using a multi-tasking system, and you have the memory size set at 74K for GETWX, GUSTFILE can only contain about 200 entries. This means that if you are saving observations every 10 minutes, and you miss a midnight routine, and you don't erase the GUSTFILE from the previous day, the program may abort during the subsequent midnight routine. It has been also known to hang the PC computer when this happens, and it may have to be rebooted. If you find yourself in this situation, you may read the GUSTFILE file with a text editor to find the high gust information for the previous day before you manually erase it. The file is set up as follows: Column 1: This is the speed of the highest gust. It is updated at each automatic observation, at which time the high gust value in the ID5001 is reset. In other words, this value represents the highest gust since the previous observation was recorded. Column 2: This is the direction the highest gust was from. -22- Column 3: This is the time the highest gust was recorded. Notice that each time represents the time since the last routine observation was made. Note: If you miss a recorded observation during the day (if you shut down GETWX or ID5SHORT), the high gust reading will be since the last routine observation was made. MEMORY REQUIREMENT SUMMARY Both GETWX and ID5SHORT are designed to be as small as possible. GETWX requires about 74K of system memory. ID5SHORT can be run in as little as 20K of memory. There are many options that ID5SHORT does not include, in order to keep it as small as possible. It is important to be sure GETWX is running at midnight to take advantage of the high, low, and average functions of the program. ID5SHORT does not do anything at midnight, except to record the midnight observation. DISK SPACE REQUIREMENTS A hard disk or a high density floppy disk makes GETWX and ID5SHORT much easier to use than standard double density floppies. One month's worth of information is at least 361,507 bytes, while a 5 1/4" double sided double density disk only can hold 360K bytes of data. These numbers assume you save your observations every 10 minutes. If you only save them every 1/2 hour, the sizes will be smaller. -23- The following sizes are for the programs that must be on your program disk: GETWX10.EXE 67,126 ID5SHORT 14,656 (optional) ------- 81,782 The following sizes are for one month's worth of observations, high, low, and average readings: For observations every 10 minutes: File Quantity Per file Total YYMMDD.OBS 31 11,327 351,137 MM-YY.AVG 1 2,680 2,680 MM-YY.HUM 1 1,417 1,417 MM-YY.WND 1 1,894 1,894 MM-YY.TEM 1 2,447 2,447 GUSTFILE 1 1,932 1,932 --------------------------------------------- 36 361,507 For observations every half hour: File Quantity Per file Total YYMMDD.OBS 31 3,935 121,985 MM-YY.AVG 1 2,680 2,680 MM-YY.HUM 1 1,417 1,417 MM-YY.WND 1 1,894 1,894 MM-YY.TEM 1 2,447 2,447 GUSTFILE 1 1,932 1,932 --------------------------------------------- 36 132,355 For observations only on the hour: File Quantity Per file Total YYMMDD.OBS 31 2,087 64,697 MM-YY.AVG 1 2,680 2,680 MM-YY.HUM 1 1,417 1,417 MM-YY.WND 1 1,894 1,894 MM-YY.TEM 1 2,447 2,447 GUSTFILE 1 1,932 1,932 --------------------------------------------- 36 75,067 These are minimums that you can expect to see on the data disk. If you add any remarks, or special observations, the size will increase. If your disk fills up, the program will abort. -24- OPERATION USING MULTI-TASKING SOFTWARE Either GETWX or ID5SHORT can be used with multi-tasking software. It has been tested on Desqview Ver. 2.01 in an 8088 Turbo XT and appears to work fine. The following descriptions assume you are using Desqview ver. 2.01, however, you may use it as a guideline to help you set up other multi- -tasking software packages. You must use the AP command to add a program to your Desqview list. The following items should be inserted in the Desqview setup windows. Item GETWX ID5SHORT Memory Size (in K): 74 20 Program: GETWX ID5SHORT.EXE Parameters: LEAVE BLANK [baud] [comport] [directory] Directory: THE DIRECTORY YOU HAVE GETWX OR ID5SHORT IN. Writes Directly to screen: N Displays Graphics Information: N Can Be Swapped out of Memory: N Requires Floppy Diskette: N Press <F1> for the following commands System Memory (in K): 0 Maximum Memory Size (in K): 0 Script Buffer Size: 0 Close on exit to DOS: Y The remainder of the windows can stay as they are. It is important to include the .EXE extension in the "Program" window when using ID5SHORT. This tells Desqview not to load another COMMAND.COM into it's window. COMMAND.COM requires 64K to operate. Thus, the 20K that ID5SHORT was designed to operate at won't work unless you add the extension. -25- TROUBLESHOOTING I have run into a couple of problems that have not been worked out yet. 1). On an 8088 Turbo XT PC, 9600 baud should work fine. However, if you have a faster computer, you may have to slow down the baud rate. If you start the program, and after a few seconds all you see is the title page, (i.e. RAM and Disk space is not flashing in the top left corner of the screen), you should try slowing down the baud rate. You must do this both in the configuration screen and manually on the ID5001. If you are using ID5SHORT, you must make the change on the command line. 2). If the GUSTFILE file is allowed to grow too large (if you miss a midnight routine), the memory that you have given GETWX may not be large enough to hold all the information. If this happens, the program will abort. Remember that ID5SHORT does not do the midnight routine. You must be running GETWX at midnight for this routine to work. If you find you missed a midnight routine, you must erase the GUSTFILE before the subsequent midnight routine. Since GUSTFILE is a standard ASCII file, you may check for the high gust with a text editor before you erase the file to manually see what the high gust was the previous day. See the GUSTFILE chapter for information on how to read the file. 3). With the serial card I'm using, I had to jump pins 5 and 6 on the RS232 connector. This is a hardware change, and has nothing to do with GETWX or ID5SHORT. If the pins are not configured correctly, you won't be able to communicate with the ID5001 with any PC. There is also no CTS or RTS handshaking done with this program. The reason for this is that the ID5001 uses negative logic, while the PCs use positive logic for the control lines. I'm working on a voltage invertor, at which time I will modify the program to use CTS / RTS handshaking, but you'll need a voltage invertor to make it work. This will improve the reliability of the program, particularly during momentary AC power failures. 4). If your data disk fills up, or you list a non-existing directory on the command line of ID5SHORT, the program will terminate with an error. If you run into any other problems, please let me know. I'll be glad to help. -26- AUTOMATIC COMMANDS It is not necessary to read this chapter, however it gives you an insight on exactly what happens between the GETWX or ID5SHORT programs and your ID5001 Weather Computer. The following commands are sent to the ID5001, and the replies that are used are listed. Startup (GETWX and ID5SHORT) The following commands are necessary so GETWX and ID5SHORT can correctly interpret the replies sent from the ID5001. Command Issued Reply Other ATVD N/A Removes date separators generated by the ID5001. ATVT N/A Removes time separators generated by the ID5001. ATXCA N/A Makes sure the ID5001 isn't in the automatic mode. Routine Observations (GETWX and ID5SHORT) The following commands are sent constantly during normal operation unless a special event is in process. Items marked with a * are not sent out during special observations (see the Function Key Chapter above). Command Issued Reply Other ATRT Time ATRB Pressure ATRBr Pressure Tendency ATRTO Outdoor Temperature ATRTOr Outdoor Temperature Tendency ATRTI Indoor Temperature ATRTIr Indoor Temperature Tendency ATRHO Outdoor Humidity ATRHOr Outdoor Humidity Tendency ATRHI Indoor Humidity -27- ATRHIr Indoor Humidity Tendency ATRWA Average wind direction and speed ATRWG Gust wind speed ATRWCG Wind Chill ATRD Date ATRR Precipitation amount ATRRI Instantaneous precipitation rate ATCWGH *N/A This resets the high gust flag on the ID5001. It is only issued during a recorded observation, and after the high gust information is saved in GUSTFILE. ATCR *N/A This rests the precipitation total to 0.00 on the ID5001. It is only issued during the first routine observation, at midnight on the first day of the month. Midnight Routine (GETWX only) The following commands are issued at midnight. All commands except those designated with a ** are also sent when you press the F4 key. (See Function Keys above for more information). Command Issued Reply ATRBH Highest pressure and time of occurrence ATRBL Lowest pressure and time of occurrence ATRTOH High outdoor temperature and time of occurrence. ATRTOL Low outdoor temperature and time of occurrence. ATRTIH High indoor temperature and time of occurrence. -28- ATRTIL Low indoor temperature and time of occurrence. ATRHOH High outdoor humidity and time of occurrence ATRHOL Low outdoor humidity and time of occurrence. ATRHIH High indoor humidity and time of occurrence. ATRHIL Low indoor humidity and time of occurrence. ATRWAH High average wind speed, direction, and time of occurrence. ATRWAL Low average wind speed, direction, and time of occurrence. ATRWGL Low gust wind speed, direction, and time of occurrence. At this point, GETWX gets the high gust information from GUSTFILE, **then erases GUSTFILE. Averages are now calculated from the YYMMDD.OBS file The rain amount for the day is made from subtracting the last reading for the day from the first reading. Command Issued Reply Other ATCBH **N/A Clears high barometer reading ATCBL **N/A Clears low barometer reading. ATCHIH **N/A Clears the high indoor temperature reading. ATCHIL **N/A Clears the low indoor temperature reading. ATCHOH **N/A Clears the high outdoor humidity reading. ATCHOL **N/A Clears the low outdoor humidity reading. -29- ATCTIH **N/A Clears the high indoor temperature reading. ATCTIL **N/A Clears the low indoor temperature reading. ATCTOH **N/A Clears the high outdoor temperature reading. ATCTOL **N/A Clears the low outdoor temperature reading. ATCWAH **N/A Clears the high average wind reading. ATCWAL **N/A Clears the low average wind reading. ATCWGL **N/A Clears the low gust wind reading. DISCLAIMER I have done my best in assuring that this program will operate as described, and will not damage any equipment. However, things may happen that may be in or out of my control. Therefore, you will use this software at your own risk. The author, or anybody distributing this software, is not responsible for ANYTHING that may happen to ANYTHING or ANYONE as a result of using this software. By using this software, you agree to the above paragraph. Thank you for trying GETWX! -30- ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS There are many people that I would like to thank for helping me along with this project, one of which is David Boyd, who developed the configuration part of the program, and who has continually helped in the testing of the software and tirelessly reading the documentation. ORDER FORM This software is distributed as shareware, and is not free. You may try it for a reasonable amount of time (60 days maximum) to evaluate it and decide if you want to continue to use it. After that time, you must either complete the attached order form and mail it to the author, along with $25.00 in cash, check, or money order, or destroy this program. When your registration is received, you will be put on the list, and will be notified by mail of any future upgrades. The upgrades will be sent to you for the price of a disk and postage. ------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------------------- Name________________________________________________________ Street Address_____________________________________________________ City, State, Zip________________________________________________________ Enclosed is $25.00 to cover the cost of GETWX and the supporting programs, and notifications of future updates to this software. -31-