www.pc-wetterstation.de

Hello W and all

We have now have got WsWin with Irox working almost 100 % at Te Whaiti school www.whirinakirainforest.info/weather We have a IT student team at AUT doing the final work to get the laptop powering up for a couple of minutes each hour ( hopefully tiggered by the laptop's BIOS CMOS clock and timer) so all will run on a 10 w solar panel.

Also they will look a how monthly files (of hourly data) can be autokmatically transfered to the school web server ( as Xcel files) so students anywhere on their intranet can access and procces them for assignments etc

Our operating manual ( still a work in progress) might help any others doing something similar It is available at http://www.kaitiakitanga.net/project%20 ... rating.doc

When we get a very clear night before a strong frosty day that demonstrates the black plate sensor temperature dropping below ambient in the evening due to heat radiatioin. then rising above it in the morning when the early morning rainforest mist starts forming, then climbing steeply when the sun comes out and the mist evapourates, we will put that nights's graph up on our weather webpage as a demonstration of its use in a school learning environment.

TRANSFERING MONTHLY FILES TO A SCHOOL ( OR CORPORATE) SERVER

One thing that we suggest might be worth considering in a later update is the facility to select the folder that monthly export files can be stored to. We are not too happy them being stored in the WsWn directory as that makes the program files a bit vulnerable in a situation where people can access the PC ( ours is in the corner of a classroom) We would like to block access to that directory. If they could instead be directed to a location on the school server, perhaps our problem would be solved.

How would any others suggest our student team automate the process of transfering the monthly files to the school server every month.

Hello,
what do you mean, when you say 'monthly files"?
Do you think of the files, where the data are stored (like wd_08_09.dat) or do you think of the export-files like Exp08_09.csv?

Sorry Werner. that was not clear

We are talking about the monthly export-files like Exp08_09.csv?. We want them available in Excel format on the school server where they can be used on student assignments that allow them to match what they observe with the measuresments taken, asking such questions as what are the conditions that may give rise to frost, mist storms etc.

We have got IROX set for hourly reading so dont keep a lot of data. Perhaps we will accumulate and store them in a file that hold a years data in EXcel, as it will let more easily plot annual cycles and allow year to year comparison down the track,

I am not sure what the situation is in Europe, but here we believe that other schools will want to do similar things to stimulate such project based student learning.

Hello,
if you need the Exp-Files in another place (folder, server), the easiest way would be to use a programm like Cobian Backup.
With this program its very simple to store a backup of any file where you want.
Another way, if you are able to understand that, would be, to use a batchfile with "copy", like
copy c:\programme\WsWin\Exp*.* F:\backup (only an example)

Hi Werner,

Just done a bit more work on the station and have a couple of points to run past you, (I can email you a copy of the last two months export files if that helps.)

1. Sunlight hours
We assume you calculate this from the Difference temperature ( black plate - outside temp. Around midday we are getting 30+ degrees difference. We left the default values with 100% factor = 20 degrees and zero= 1 degrees and left the other limits as they are, but dont seem to get a sunlight hours reading? Any suggestions appreciated please.

For the sun correction factor all months are currently 19. Do you have any pointers as to how we should calulate these for each Month.

2. sunrise / sunset times. Our station is lacated at 38.25 22 south ans 176.47 East That is set up under weather/ location but the trend is going the wrong way - as we are leaving winter and into summer the daylight time is getting shorter!

3. We have observed a big change in the UV peaks between adjacent totally cloud free days which you will see on the graphs at http://www.whirinakirainforest.info/wea ... nation.htm We have a theory but does anyone have any ideas what might cause this?

4 Sorry we have had a laptop disc failure so the web information is not being updated at present.

We are very happy with what we are getting from PC Wetter and its reliability thanks

Hello,
I fear, I cannot help you wirh these problems, probably Werner (Krenn) can do that.
to question nr. 2
I think, you have inserted the wrong value. For latitude south you have to take a negative value, that means "-38" und not "38"

Thanks Werner,

Sorry I did not add the negative sign in my post but it is in the entry and shows as South. Just to check I did change it to + for North and then found that the day markers did make them get longer on the main display as we moved towards summer. That all seems a bit strange to me as that would make all you Northern Hemisphere people wrong too? Is there somewhere else other than in the Weather/ location screen that could put a double negative on this somehow?

Peter

Hello Peter,

please send me your wswin.cfg file and monthly data file (maybe md_09_09.dat)

Werner

Sorry Werner.

The Sunrise and sunset thing seems like it was my problem. I was reading the movement wrong. Things seem to be OK now - possibly after setting the latitude positive then back again to negative. There was definately a time where the sunrise was shown on PM and sunset as AM - I think on the Minidisplay.

Hi Werner and the network,
I have just fished getting the station Wetter going again at the school. We have had the laptop away for a repair in Auckland where we had it running for a couple of months using a diferent IROX station, so a couple of months had their end of month data closeoff I guess. This meant that when we got it back to the school where their IROX had been still merrily storing its hourly results, that data did not get through and overwrite anything as we expected it might. It reads it in but does it not get into database/ displays/ reports. As Sept and Oct are months where we have the worst ozone hole problems in our hemisphere etc, we would like to capture data on that if we can ... or we wait for another year!

I know this is not a "normal" problem, but if anyone knows how to clear those months of data so it can be replaced, that would be fantastic. If it was easier, we would be very happy to clear all the stored data and start again, restarting by reading the real time information since May which is still in IROX memory.

We are thrilled with what WsWin is doing for us and what we now have on-web at www.whirinakirainforest.info/weather as a public service . Even more importantly is a now a great facility for the school to build learning programs around.

Thanks so much to all who gave us advice on this forum

Peter

@Peter,

can you send me a current EEPROM.bin file (created with Weathercapture)

or created with Wswin
(you get the instructions to do that via email in December 2008 )

If there are data, we can solve the problem - I think.

Werner