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************************************************************ * * * The Weather Board (R) Weather Forecast Retrieval System * * * * * * Copyright (c) 1993-94 By Rhino Ware * * * ************************************************************ The Weather Board Weather Forecast Retrieval System 1 TABLE OF CONTENTS ----------------- TABLE OF CONTENTS ................................ 1 COPYRIGHT NOTICE ................................. 2 WARRANTY ......................................... 2 TRADEMARKS ....................................... 2 INTRODUCTION ..................................... 2 Feature Summary .............................. 3 HARDWARE REQUIREMENTS ............................ 5 INSTALLATION ..................................... 5 Basic Setup for Weather Board ................. 5 The Configuration File ........................ 6 Color Codes ................................... 7 About Modem Settings .......................... 7 HOW IT WORKS ..................................... 8 REGISTRATION INFORMATION ......................... 9 How to obtain your Registered Version ......... 9 Registration Policy ........................... 10 LEAVING ME A MESSAGE ............................. 10 CONFIGURATION EXAMPLES ........................... A-1 SPECIAL NOTES TO DESQVIEW USERS .................. B-1 ZONE FORECASTS ................................... C-1 THE ZONE UPDATE FLAG ............................. D-1 THE FILE PATH OPTION ............................. E-1 REGISTRATION FORM ................................ F-1 The Weather Board Weather Forecast Retrieval System 2 COPYRIGHT NOTICE ---------------- Weather Board is a copyrighted program being distributed under the shareware concept. As such, you may operate Weather Board for a period of 60 days without registering the software. After the 60 day evaluation period, you must register your copy of Weather Board or you will be in violation of United States and International copyright laws. As a shareware program, Weather Board may be freely distributed through a BBS. Shareware distributors may distribute copies of Weather Board on disk for a modest disk duplication charge not to exceed $6 per disk. It is a violation of the Weather Board license agreement to modify the EXE file in any way. WARRANTY -------- Weather Board is distributed without warranty. In no event will Joe Rhinehart or Rhino Ware be liable to you for damages, including any loss of profits, lost savings, or other incidental or consequential damages arising out of your use of or inability to use the program, even if Joe Rhinehart, Rhino Ware or an authorized representative has been advised of the possibility of such damages. Joe Rhinehart or Rhino Ware will not be liable for any such claim by any other party. Once the program has been registered, there will be NO REFUNDS of the registration fee. It is the user's responsibility to be certain that Weather Board runs on their system, and meets their needs, BEFORE they register! TRADEMARKS ---------- Weather Board is a registered trademark of Joe Rhinehart and Rhino Ware. All other brand and product names mentioned in this manual are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies. INTRODUCTION ------------ Welcome to Weather Board! To many people's surprise, a BBS Sysop can provide callers with the local weather forecast. The whole process is very low cost, possibly free! Many airports around the country run a system which provides weather information to pilots, called Weathermation. Although the service is mainly for pilots, to assist them in filing flight plans, etc., anyone is permitted to access the information. The Weather Board Weather Forecast Retrieval System 3 The Weathermation system has many options, one of which is called Metro Weather. This option produces a plain English weather forecast for any area of the country, based on the three letter airport ID that you supply. Weather Board will call the airport's Weathermation number, select the Metro option and write an editied text file containing your local area's forecast. The National Weather Service updates the forecast about every six hours. The appoximate times are 9:00 am, 3:00 pm, 9:00 pm and 3:00 am. This varies, up to plus or minus 45 minutes. Of course, if the weather changes profoundly between normal update times, the NWS will issue "updated" or "corrected" reports. These can become available at any time. You'll have to call the closest airport to get your local Weathermation number, if its not in the list that is presented later in this document. Ask for their airport ID also, if you don't already know it. Bear in mind that the closest Weathermation system may still be a long distance call for you. That's why I said it is very low cost and POSSIBLY free. There is no charge for the service, but you may have to pay long distance telephone charges. Typically, you can capture the forecast in less than a minute, so even if you do have to call long distance, your cost for providing this service should be minimal. One of Weather Board's chief design goals is ease of installation and use. It is designed specifically to be run from a batch file, called as an event from a BBS program or front end mailer. Thus, it can run completely unattended. If desired, it can also be run manually from the Dos prompt, or under a multi tasker. Feature Summary --------------- Weather Board comes equipped with many powerful features: * - Weather Board can get local forecasts either by city or state forecast zone. This makes it compatible with the new Zone Forecast standard that is currently being implemented by the National Weather Service. * - The program transforms the output file into upper / lower case, and removes many of the unnecessary or unsightly items from the raw Weathermation capture file. It also checks for incomplete and garbled weather reports. Some blank lines are added for improved readability of the output files. * - During transformation, the program looks for key words that indicate severe weather in the local area forecast. If found, a brief "Special Weather Statement" is produced. You can post this as a logon screen, to alert your callers that they should read your complete forecast bulletin. * - Weather Board can make use of "primary" and "secondary" telephone numbers. The primary number is the number you perfer to call most often. The secondary number is a "backup" number, in case the primary The Weather Board Weather Forecast Retrieval System 4 number is down, busy, etc. The program will automatically switch to the secondary number if the forecast can't be obtained from the primary Weathermation site. You can disable this feature if you wish. * - You can customize screen colors, the modem initialization string, Tone or Pulse dialing, communications port and baud rate, Weathermation phone numbers, number of busy retries and output files. All this is done in a plain text configuration file, which is similar in layout to one used in a BBS door. * - Error level support for batch files: 0 - Normal Completion. The weather information was retrieved. 1 - Minor Error: Shareware version of the program has expired. 2 - Minor Error: Zone Forecast was not found, and BBS bulletins will not be updated per user request. 3 - Minor Error: Weather Information not retrieved. Program restart is possible, depending on the batch file setup. 5 - Major Error: Weather Information not retrieved. Program restart is not possible. * - There is a sound option that will make the program beep once for a return code of 0, and three and five times for error codes 3 and 5, respectively. * - Multiple Forecasts to let you do two local city forecasts and two state summary forecasts with one run of the program. If you put CMH LAX in line 4 of WB.CFG, you'll get the reports for Columbus and Los Angeles in the local forecast output file. If you put OH CA in line 8, you'll get the state summaries for Ohio and California in the state summary output file. Here's the neat part. If you put OH CA in line 4, you'll get a local forecast output file that contains forecasts for most major cities in both states. What cities you get will depend on where the National Weather Service offices are in that state. Couple this with OH CA in line 8, to get the state summaries, and you'll obtain a wealth of weather information for a fairly wide area. This is handy for people that live near state borders and need weather reports for both states. * - Edit Mode. There are two options for Edit Mode, FULL and JET. FULL edit does lower case translation, and capitalization all over the place, as required. It doesn't get everything all the time, but it handles about 98% of the situations it encounters. But this takes time. JET bypasses the lower case phase of the editor. It also will not add blank lines in quite as many places as FULL does. However, the same file size that takes FULL 10 minutes can be done by JET in about 25 seconds. If you are getting forecasts for one city and state, or at least not very many cities and one state, use FULL. It doesn't take very long on small capture files, and it will make your output files look the best. If you need reports for a large area, or the reports you ask for tend to generate large capture files, use JET. Your output files will be in upper case, and they might not look quite as nice as with FULL, but your BBS will come back up a LOT faster with JET. You'll just have to experiment and see which option is right for you. The Weather Board Weather Forecast Retrieval System 5 * - State Summary File. The program will get the weather summary for the state(s) of your choice and place it in a file name of your choice. * - There is a log file so you can see what went on during a batch run. You can turn logging off if you don't want it. * - Most Dos error codes are handled by name, and clear error messages are printed, explaining what went wrong. If an error code pops up that isn't recognized, it is printed also. * - The program will check for the modem responses of OK, CONNECT, BUSY, ERROR, NO DIAL TONE, NO CARRIER, NO ANSWER, VOICE and RING. * - You can control whether the program takes the modem offhook during its file edit phase or not. * - Weather Board should run under any operating system that supports MS-Dos applications. I developed it under Windows 3.1. HARDWARE REQUIREMENTS ---------------------- Weather Board has very small hardware requirements. It will run on an IBM PC or compatible computer with 640K of memory, a 100% Hayes compatible modem, monochrome monitor and a 360k floppy drive. INSTALLATION ------------ Weather Board was designed with the Sysop in mind. So, if you've ever installed an online door, you should have no difficulty installing Weather Board. Basic Setup For Weather Board ------------------------------ Typically, Weather Board is set up as an external event to be run from a BBS or front end mailer package. Weather Board should run with any program that supports external events. After step 3 below, you can run Weather Board standalone, from a Dos session, by typing Z. Step 4 is just for event setup. 1. Create a directory for Weather Board, usually C:\WB, and move all files in the Weather Board archive to it. 2. Edit the WB.CFG file for the correct com port, and other options. The init string should turn off your modem's error correction and put the phone back on the hook, if its off hook. The default configuration file is set up to call the Virginia Tech number and get the forecast for Columbus, Ohio. Change it accordingly for your area. See the following sections for more details on this subject. 3. Edit the copy statements in the Z.BAT file so the program output files will be copied to one of your BBS's display or bulletin files. The Weather Board Weather Forecast Retrieval System 6 The default batch file is set up for the Wildcat BBS package. 4. Set up an external event in your BBS or front end mailer program to run at the appropriate time(s). Make sure the event is set to "forced", "non sliding", "hard" or whetever your package needs to ensure that the event runs on time. To run Weather Board under Windows, copy Z.PIF to your main Windows directory, then add a program item for Weather Board to any program group that you choose. See the Windows online help for more information on this procedure. To run Weather Board with Front Door, add the contents of the FDBBS.TXT file to your main Front Door batch file, in the proper places. Set up an eXternal event in Front Door to run Weather Board at the appropriate time(s). The default error level in FDBBS.TXT is 45. NOTE: Some Front End / Fossil driver combinations leave the driver active when they shell out to run external events. While I have not found this to be a problem with Front Door and X00, some problems have been reported with other combinations. If Weather Board can't open the comm port, or send the init string to the modem, you will have to temporarily disable the fossil driver before WB is started. Then reenable it before you restart your front end or BBS. The Configuration File ---------------------- Weather Board uses a configuration file to govern its appearance and operation. Its name is WB.CFG, and it must exist in the Weather Board directory for the program to run. Below is the format for the file. Lines can be in upper or lower case, but all of them must be present. See the Configuration Examples section for setup help. 1. The communications port (COM1: or COM2:) 2. The baud rate (9600 maximum, 1200 - 2400 usually) 3. The airport ID(s) for the local forecast(s) (See examples) 4. Complete output file name for the local area forecast(s) 5. Phone number of the Primary Weathermation System (no dashes) 6. Tone / Pulse dialing string (ATDT or ATDP) 7. Modem init string or NONE 8. State code(s) for the state summary forecast(s) (See examples) 9. COLOR or MONO screen attributes 10. Foreground color (0 - 15) 11. Background color (0 - 7) 12. Number of dial retries (0 - 32767) 3 to 6 usually 13. Log Status - LOG or NOLOG 14. Sound Option - BEEP or NOBEEP 15. Phone number of the Secondary Weathermation System or NONE 16. Edit Mode - FULL or JET 17. Complete output file name for the state summary forecast(s) 18. Modem Hook Control - YES or NO 19. Forecast Zone - NONE, ALL or ZONE # - See Appendix for details 20. Zone Update Flag - YES or NO - See Appendix for details 21. Drive / Path info for the data files (NONE or complete path) The Weather Board Weather Forecast Retrieval System 7 Color Codes ----------- The following is a list of DOS color codes. The "Blink" background means that the foreground character will blink on and off when the background is set to one of the background color codes 8 through 15. The "Blink" codes are not supported by Weather Board. Background Color Foreground Color -------------------------------------------------- 0 - Black 0 - Black 1 - Blue 1 - Blue 2 - Green 2 - Green 3 - Cyan 3 - Cyan 4 - Red 4 - Red 5 - Magenta 5 - Magenta 6 - Brown 6 - Brown 7 - White 7 - White 8 - Black Blink 8 - Dark Grey 9 - Blue Blink 9 - Light Blue 10 - Green Blink 10 - Light Green 11 - Cyan Blink 11 - Light Cyan 12 - Red Blink 12 - Light Red 13 - Magenta Blink 13 - Light Magenta 14 - Brown Blink 14 - Yellow 15 - White Blink 15 - Bright White ---------------------------------------------------- To add color to your display file or bulletin, edit the WTOP.ASC and WBOT.ASC files. Add whatever codes are recognized by your BBS package to activate color. For Wildcat 3.x, it would be something like this: @06@ at the beginning of the bar in WTOP @0B@ at the end of the bar in WTOP @06@ at the beginning of the bar in WBOT @0F@ at the end of the bar in WBOT B and F are Wildcat's codes for 11 and 15. For BBS packages that use straight Ansi to generate color, you would need to add the Ansi escape sequences manually, with a text editor, or with an Ansi editor, such as The Draw. About Modem Settings --------------------- Weather Board will run only on com port 1 or 2. Its maximum connect rate is 9600 baud. Standard IRQ settings should be used. Also, the Weathermation software does not get along with error correcting modems. In order for these modems to connect and retrieve the weather forecast properly, you need to temporarily disable your modem's error correcting feature. This is done with the Init String option in the WB.CFG file. The string must start with the letters AT followed by whatever command disables the feature for your modem. Here are some examples: The Weather Board Weather Forecast Retrieval System 8 USR Sportster : AT&M0 USR Courier HST : AT&M0 Cardinal 9600 : AT\N0 Intel 144I : AT\N0 Digicom Scout + : AT*E0 Boca 14.4k : AT&Mn Compucom Champ : AT&F\N0 Using the above strings will not write the setting into your modem's NRAM. See your modem manual for the setting you need. It should be listed under something like "error control" or "error correction". This explanation only applies to error correcting modems. If you are running a modem that does not support /ARQ or /MNP connections, you can use the word NONE in the Init String line of WB.CFG, and get a proper connection to Weathermation. Another use for the Init String is to disable call waiting service, if you have it. If your computer is using a phone line that has this service, and a call comes in, your modem will be disconnected. For touch tone telephones, use AT*70, for pulse (rotary) systems, use AT1170. This will disable call waiting for the current call only. The service will reactivate when the current call ends. One other use for the Init String is to increase the intelligence level of your modem, by adding an X value. Most BBS packages set the X value to X1, which provides minimum modem capabilities. For Weather Board, you should use the highest X value that your modem supports. This is usually between X4 and X7. Another interesting note is that some modems return a result code of RINGING while the remote telephone line is ringing. This will give Weather Board fits, because the code will be taken as a RING, or incomming call. If your modem returns RINGING, reduce the X value to a number that will disable the RINGING result code. Special note to users of the new USR HST Dual Standard 16.8k modem: You may need to add an &F as the first command of your init string. Also, if you are running with an X value of X7 and experience connection problems with the Weathermation system, try a more conservative setting, like X4. It seems that these modems tend to "outsmart" themselves, and these two changes usually fix the problem. HOW IT WORKS ------------- Here's an overview of Weather Board in operation. First, it calls the Weathermation number listed in the Primary Number line of WB.CFG. If there is no answer, the number of busy retries is exceeded, etc., then the Secondary number is called. The connection attempt process is repeated. If Weather Board still can't connect, it gives up and exits. If a connection is made to either number, Weather Board attempts to get two weather reports: The local Metro forecast, and the State Summary forecast. The uneditied capture file names are as follows: The local forecast file is made up of the entry on line 3 of WB.CFG plus "L.DAT". Example: CMH on line 3 creates CMHL.DAT. The state forecast file is made up of the entry on line 8 of WB.CFG plus "S.DAT". Example: OH on line 8 creates OHS.DAT. The Weather Board Weather Forecast Retrieval System 9 Next, the program hangs up the phone, and edits the raw capture files. The editied display file names are as follows: The local forecast file is made up of the entry on line 4 of WB.CFG. The state forecast file is taken from the entry on line 17. You must specify a full filename and extension on both of these entries. During the edit procedure, the program looks for certain key words that indicate severe weather in the local forecast file. If any of these are found, the special weather file, BADWEATH.TXT is created. It contains a very brief explanation that some type of severe weather was forecast. If none of the expected keywords is found, this file is not produced. At present, there isn't an option to get one report or the other, but provisions have been made to allow the display of either or both reports, via the Z.BAT file. Here's how: In the example configuration files, the editied forecasts are stored in CMH2.DAT and OH2.DAT. The batch file simply appends these files together with the WTOP.ASC, WMID.ASC, and WBOT.ASC files and copies them to the proper places. So, depending on how you set up the copy statements in Z.BAT, you can dispplay either or both forecast files in one or more bulletins or display files. The BADWEATH.TXT file is done the same way, if it exists. REGISTRATION INFORMATION ------------------------ Skeptical about registering Weather Board? Its understandable. I want to say right up front that I'm not one of those "grab the money & run" guys. Running a BBS and doing PC programming is my main hobby. Its the thing that I do with my spare time. I've been a Sysop since 1986, and I intend to be one for a long time to come. I'm no 90 day wonder kid either. As of this writing, I'm age 40, and have been in data processing for over 20 years. So, when I tell you that you're going to get certain things in exchange for your money, you can believe it! Registration of Weather Board is $10.00. Payment must be made in US funds, drawn on a US bank. Check or Money Order is accepted, made payable to Joe Rhinehart. The registration form is on page F-1. Mail to: Joe Rhinehart 760 Cherryhurst Drive Columbus, Oh 43228-2795 How to obtain your Registered Version -------------------------------------- Once you're sent in the completed registration and payment: 1. Allow a few days for the mail to reach here. The Weather Board Weather Forecast Retrieval System 10 2. Call The Comm * Port at 1-614-870-6544 (28800) 3. When you log on, from the Main Menu, pick M to go to the message section. Then select R to read messages, and U for unread personal messages. Press enter to search selected conferences. Be sure to use the same name on the BBS that you used on your registration form. If you send in the form using Charles Smith, then log onto the BBS as Chuck Smith, you won't find your message! 4. Your registered copy of Weather Board will be attached to your personal message. Select D to download it. That's it. I think you'll find this a faster, less complicated way to get your registered copy. You won't have to wait to get a return package, or have it get lost in the mail. And I can put your message & file online within minutes of receiving your payment. Registration Policy -------------------- What do you get when you register? Ok, let's say you register version 1.00. First, you get a registered program that will never expire, or display any shareware "nag" messages to you or your users. The shareware version expires every 60 days. Next, you'll be entitled to all minor updates (1.01 to 1.xx) free of charge. After you obtain your first registered copy, I'll upgrade your security so you will have access to a special Weather Board conference and file area on my BBS. That way, you can get all future file updates and ask questions about Weather Board. You can also get help on setup or other program related matters. If there is a major update (1.xx to 2.00), then you'll have to pay for it. But, since you are a registered user, your cost is only $5.00 as opposed to the $10.00 for a new registration. Then, any minor updates (2.01 to 2.xx) will once again be free. I'll notify everyone about major updates via message in the Weather Board conference, or the BBS newsletter file. LEAVING ME A MESSAGE --------------------- If you need to contact me, and can't reach me at the BBS, you can find me at this address: InterNet : joe.rhinehart@commport.org I hope you enjoy using Weather Board! The Weather Board Weather Forecast Retrieval System A-1 Configuration Examples ---------------------- Here are some examples of WB.CFG to show you what Weather Board can do. Take note of lines 3 and 8 in each example. 1. The "basic" setup. Get the local forecast for one city and the state summary for one state. In this case, Columbus, and Ohio. Enable the sound option an do full editing with hook control on. No Zone Forecasts, and use the current directory for storing files. COM1: 2400 CMH CMH2.DAT 17032315001 ATDT AT&M0 OH COLOR 15 3 3 LOG BEEP 18044214361 FULL OH2.DAT YES NONE YES NONE The Weather Board Weather Forecast Retrieval System A-2 2. Get the local forecast for several major cities in one state and the state summary for one state. In this case, all of Ohio. No sound and full editing without hook control. Get the Zone 7 Forecast. If you don't find zone 7, don't update the BBS bulletins. Use E:\ for file storage. This is most likely a ramdisk. COM1: 2400 OH CMH2.DAT 17032315001 ATDT AT&M0 OH COLOR 15 3 3 LOG NOBEEP 18044214361 FULL OH2.DAT NO 007 NO E:\ The Weather Board Weather Forecast Retrieval System A-3 3. Get the local forecast for several major cities in two states and the state summary for two states. In this case, Ohio and West Virginia. Use sound, and Jet editing with hook control. Use the Monochrome screen settings. No Zone Forecasts, and use the current directory for file storage. COM1: 2400 OH WV CMH2.DAT 17032315001 ATDT AT&M0 OH WV MONO 15 3 3 LOG BEEP 18044214361 JET OH2.DAT YES NONE YES NONE The Weather Board Weather Forecast Retrieval System A-4 4. Get the local forecast for two cities in two states and the state summary for two states. In this case, Columbus, Ohio and Phoenix, Arizona. No sound, and Jet editing without hook control. No Zone Forecasts. Use F:\JOE\ for file storage. COM1: 2400 CMH PHX CMH2.DAT 17032315001 ATDT AT&M0 OH AZ COLOR 15 3 3 LOG NOBEEP 18044214361 JET OH2.DAT NO NONE YES F:\JOE\ Note that you can only specify a maximum of two report areas for both the local and state forecasts. If you need more, you'll have to modify the batch file to do multiple runs of the program. This is due to Dos file naming conventions. Sorry, fortunes of war. The Weather Board Weather Forecast Retrieval System B-1 Special Notes to Desqview Users -------------------------------- Several people who use Desqview as a multitasker have said that Weather Board will not run in that environment. Well, it will, if you do it a certain way. The most common complaint is a DEVICE UNAVAILABLE error at line 900. This is where WB attempts to open the communications port. The problem is usually caused by spawning to another DV window, and trying to run WB while the BBS node or front end mailer is still up. In this case, the program in the original window still controls the com port. In order for WB to work, it MUST be able to get exclusive control of the port while it is running. This can be accomplished by having the BBS or front end shell to Dos in the original window, and run Z.BAT from that window. This should cause the calling program (and DV) to temporarily release the port, so WB can have it. Then, WB in turn will release the port when it ends, allowing DV and the calling program to reclaim it. Here's something else to check. You must have the USES SERIAL PORTS setting in the .DVP set with the COM # or Y, like this: Options: Writes text directly to screen.......: [Y] Displays graphics information........: [Y] Virtualize text/graphics (Y,N,T).....: [Y] ===>> Uses serial ports (Y,N,1,2)..........: [1] or 2 or Y Requires floppy diskette.............: [N] The line marked above MUST have one of the choices I've outlined, but never " N ". Otherwise Weather Board will not find the port. I'm not sure why it works like this, but many door programs have the same trouble. It may be because Weather Board doesn't have (or need) fossil driver support. If you still experience problems running Weather Board from your BBS under Desqview, try these tests before spending money to call for help. 1. Shut Desqview down, and try running Z.BAT from native DOS. Once you get that going, go to step 2. 2. Bring up DV, but shut down ALL nodes of your BBS / mailer. Start up one DV window, and run Z.BAT from there. If this works, try step 3. 3. Bring up all BBS / mailer nodes, EXCEPT the node that runs on the same port as WB. IE, if you use COM1: for WB, leave the BBS node that uses COM1: down. Now run Z.BAT from its own window. If this works, go to step 4. 4. Re-check the settings for the node that uses the same port as WB. Be sure that Z.BAT is set to run as an external event, and that the BBS / mailer shells out to Dos, or leaves memory in some other way, so that the port and other resources of the DV window are released, BEFORE the WB program begins to run. Be sure the DV Pif is correct. The Weather Board Weather Forecast Retrieval System B-2 If the full setup still doesn't work, give my BBS a jingle, and leave me a message. Please attach a ZIP file to the message, that contains your WB.CFG and WB.LOG file. That way, I can get an idea of what is or isn't happening when you run the program. The Weather Board Weather Forecast Retrieval System C-1 ZONE FORECASTS -------------- On 10/1/93, the National Weather Service started a new "service" called Zone Forecasts. These forecasts are groupings of several cities in an area, usually divided by county or parish boundaries within a state. These new forecasts are taking the place of the individual city forecasts that you can get now with Weather Board. As zone forecasts are being phased in over the country, several people have told me that they are loosing their local forecast. So, I decided that it was about time to support this feature. Weathermation has an FP5 product that produces all the zone forecasts in a state. And each zone has a 3 digit number. Now the fun part. How do you get a reasonably local forecast if your state has been placed under zone forecasts? First, you need to determine if your city code is still available from the weather service, and consequently from Weathermation. Some cities that have had individual forecasts forever have simply disappeared. Others are still around, but have been lumped in with one or more other cities, because of the county where they are located. Here's how to sort it all out: There's a new line in WB.CFG (line 19) called "Forecast Zone". It has three options: NONE - Get the local Metro and FP1 state forecasts just like before. ALL - Get all the forecast zones within a state. xxx - Get a particular 3-digit forecast zone within a state. The xxx is the number. For example, zone 7 would be 007. As long as you can get your local city forecast, specifiy NONE in line 19 and Weather Board will work as it always has. When you see a note in the forecast that your city will be discontinued, you will need to make a couple of runs to fix things up. First, change line 19 of WB.CFG to ALL, line 20 to NO and line 3 to your state code, then run the program. This will produce a capture file with all of your state's zones. Its name will be your state code plus "L.DAT". In my case, the file name is OHL.DAT. List this file and look for the closest reporting city or county to where you live. Now, look a few lines above where your city or county is listed. You will see a line that starts with your state code followed by a Z and a 3-digit number. It will look something like OHZ001 followed by some other numbers. New York would be NYZ001, California would be CAZ001, etc. The 3-digit number will be different also. The set of numbers on this line correspond to the list of counties for your (generally) local area. So now that you have all of these numbers, which one is your county? Good question. Let's go through an example to find Columbus Ohio, which is in Franklin county. Its easier to actully DO this than to EXPLAIN it. So don't worry... The Weather Board Weather Forecast Retrieval System C-2 Here's a header section of an "all zones" capture file, and explanations: OHZ045-046-051>056-060>065-070>072-077>080-171000- Read this line as "Ohio Zones 45, 46, 51 to 56, 60 to 65, 70 to 72, and 77 to 80". To be honest, I don't know what that last number is, but its not needed to find your zone anyway. (g) Just remember that the > means "FROM number TO number", and the - means an individual number. BROWN-BUTLER-DELAWARE-FAIRFIELD-FAYETTE-FRANKLIN-GREENE-HAMILTON HIGHLAND-LICKING-MADISON-MIAMI-MONTGOMERY-PICKAWAY-PREBLE-UNION-WARREN Now we get to play "match the county name to the number". Brown and Butler counties are 045 and 046 because those numbers are listed directly in the output. Delaware county is 051 because its listed first in the next group. But notice that this group covers zones 051 to 056. So now we count. Fairfield is 052, Fayette is 053, and Franklin is 054. And sure enough, if I ask for zone 054, I get Franklin county, and hence, Columbus! INCLUDING THE CITIES OF...SPRINGFIELD...COLUMBUS...DAYTON... CIRCLEVILLE...LANCASTER...WILMINGTON...CINCINNATI This section contains "nice to know" information, so you can be sure that the weather forecast that follows is for your local (or nearest major) city. That wasn't TOO bad, now was it? Once you have determined your zone number, you put it on line 19 of WB.CFG. Then Weather board should be able to track down your city no matter where it appears in the zone forecast file. Fortunately, you should only have to go through this once. Starting with Weather Board 1.43, there was an enhacement to this procedure. For some major cities, like New York, you can get the zone forecast by using the three letter city code. So, if you can't find the forecast for your zone in the state zone forecast product, try using the ALL keyword in the forecast zone line of WB.CFG, and use your city's code in the local forecast line. Doing this may help you find your zone. The Weather Board Weather Forecast Retrieval System D-1 THE ZONE UPDATE FLAG -------------------- This flag is line 20 in WB.CFG. It tells Weather Board what to do if the 3-digit zone number you requested was not found in the most recent zone weather report. This has been known to happen when the National Weather Service issues updated / corrected forecasts for selected zones. Sometimes your zone may not be included in these forecasts if its not involved in the update or correction. You now have the option of (1) updating your BBS bulletins with all of the zone forecasts that are present in the latest report, or (2) not updating the bulletins at all, and receiving an errorlevel 2 from Weather Board. Then you can have your batch file take some appropriate action. Putting YES on line 20 gives you option 1 - this is the way that Weather Board has worked up to this point. Putting NO on line 20 gives you option 2. Users of older versions of Weather Board will need to add an IF ERRORLEVEL 2 line to their batch file to make use of option 2. The Weather Board Weather Forecast Retrieval System E-1 THE FILE PATH OPTION --------------------- This is line 21 in WB.CFG. It controls the drive and path that Weather Board uses to store and edit its capture files. The editied output files are placed here also. Line 21 should be set to NONE for Weather Board to use the current directory. This will make it work like it always has. If you want to Weather Board to put the files on a ramdisk or other drive / dirctory, specify the COMPLETE drive and path on line 21, including the trailing slash! Examples: E:\JOE\ F:\ If you enable this option, be sure to edit the copy statements in Z.BAT so they will pick up the relocated files! The Weather Board Weather Forecast Retrieval System F-1 Weather Board Registration Form Version of Weather Board requested: DOS ___ OS/2 ___ Name: _______________________________________________________________ (First) (Last) Address: ____________________________________________________________ City: _______________________ State: _______ Zip: ___________________ Telephone Number: Day: _________________ Night: _____________________ BBS Name: ___________________________________________________________ BBS Phone Number: ___________________________________________________ Modem: ____________________ Maximum Baud Rate: ______________________ Did you have to alter the default initialization string? ____________ If yes, your initialization string: _________________________________ Did you use a Weathermation number that was not in the list? ________ If yes, please answer these questions, so I can update the list: City: ____________________________ State: ________ Area Code & Telephone Number: ______________________________ Comments: ___________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ THANK YOU for registering Weather Board!