[wxqc] New WeatherLink version, "NOAA" verses "APRS" Winds

[Dave Helms]

Hi Gary,

That is good news.  More motivation to use the "NOAA" standard.  This 
will result in generally higher gusts which can be compared with the 
professional ASOS/AWOS stations (CWOP stations will be generally be 
lower gusts than ASOS/AWOS stations as a result of CWOP canopy siting in 
most cases).

Dave

Gary Oldham wrote:

> Thanks, Dave, for the clarifications.  One item, though, bears a 
> little more examination.  Davis states that their "NOAA Standard" 
> provides the two minute average wind and ten minute gust, and looking 
> at a series of my own obs from last night and this morning, that 
> appears to be correct, e.g., the Davis implementation of the NOAA 
> standard uses the 2/10 minute winds vs. the 1/5 minute winds in the 
> APRS format.
>
> Gary
>
> Dave Helms wrote:
>
>> Hi Gary,
>>
>> Issue #1.  Russ and I have been communicating with the Davis folks 
>> about WeatherLink's coding of the APRS message.  In our discussions, 
>> we asked that Davis WeatherLink include the gust report and 1 hr and 
>> 24 hr precip support within the APRS message.
>>
>> Issue #2.  Russ and I have also been working within APRS community to 
>> update the APRS message protocol standard to be consistent with 
>> international and ASOS wind reporting standards; specifically, 
>> modifying the APRS protocol to require a 2 minute mean (average) wind 
>> and a 10 minute peak gust (highest wind speed measurement in the 10 
>> minutes prior to the message valid time).  Russ has probed the APRS 
>> community on updating the APRS protocol standard, but we have not yet 
>> gotten the requested changes into the protocol yet.  One concern is 
>> that there will be a range of wind reporting "standards" as various 
>> developers introduce software updated supporting the new standard and 
>> it will take years to work through the upgrades through the developer 
>> and user bases (we have 16 data logging applications that support 
>> CWOP currently).
>> In our discussions with Davis, we informed them of our efforts to 
>> modify the APRS protocol.  We encouraged Davis, since they were 
>> considering adding the wind gust anyway, to consider being an "early 
>> adopter" of the draft APRS wind reporting standard.  Apparently, 
>> Davis decided to hedge their bets and code to the 1) current APRS 
>> standard and the 2) draft "NOAA" standard for winds.  It doesn't not 
>> look like they fully succeeded in coding to the "NOAA" format winds 
>> as they have a 5 minute wind gust, instead of a 10 minute wind 
>> gust.   In either case, WeatherLink produces a message using the APRS 
>> formatting conventions that is readily decoded by FINDU and MADIS.
>>
>> I suggest Davis WeatherLink users thinking about upgrading to version 
>> 5.6 configure their APRS (CWOP) messages to support the "NOAA 
>> Standard" for winds.  The longer averaging time (from 1 to 2 minutes) 
>> for the mean wind will result in "smoother" winds (e.g. less jaggy) 
>> which are more representative for your location and (this is 
>> important for a meteorologist perspective) provide an 
>> apples-to-apples comparison with the airport ASOS/AWOS winds (yes 
>> different siting, but at least we are sampling the data using the 
>> same (similar) data processing methods).
>>
>> Thanks for raising these issues,
>>
>> Dave
>> CW0351
>>
>> P.S.  As VWS, WeatherLink, and several applications refer to "APRS" 
>> rather than "CWOP" on their setup menus, I typically use APRS/CWOP on 
>> my setup helper pages to try and minimize potential confusion.  In 
>> fact, APRS is the Ham Radio message protocol which CWOP uses to 
>> format its messages; while CWOP is the entire community of weather 
>> observers, both Ham Radio and Internet, who voluntarily contributing 
>> weather data, code, bandwidth, servers, and their time in support of 
>> our hobby.
>>
>>
>> Gary Oldham wrote:
>>
>>> Dave and others:
>>>
>>> What a nice day we're having after all these 90+ days!
>>>
>>> While I should be outside mowing my lawn and doing other things to 
>>> take advantage of the day, I'm futzing with a brand new beta release 
>>> of WeatherLink (v5.6).  Actually has some substantial improvements 
>>> over earlier versions, and the big news in my book is that Davis has 
>>> finally figured out the concept of wind gusts... sorta....
>>>
>>> Now for CWOP reports, which Davis persists on calling APRS reports - 
>>> undoubtedly causing some confusion, especially for non-hams - the 
>>> user can select two different reporting formats.  Classic good news 
>>> and bad news in my book.  The two formats are these, differing only 
>>> in wind speed and gust reporting:
>>>
>>> The "APRS Standard" - shows one minute average wind speed and gust 
>>> within the past five minutes
>>> The "NOAA Standard" - reports two minute average wind speed and gust 
>>> within the past five minutes
>>>
>>> Now, unless I'm really missing something - always a possibility - it 
>>> would seem that the only format that CWOP/MADIS and other NOAA/NWS 
>>> users would want is the "NOAA Standard".  Any suggestions on how we 
>>> might get the word out to users to utilize that standard rather than 
>>> the APRS one?  I will be happy to post on the Weather Matrix forum 
>>> as well as the WeatherLink forum, but perhaps CWOP should contact 
>>> Davis and request that they at least include some language asking 
>>> CWOPers to use the "NOAA Standard"?
>>>
>>> Thanks in advance for your thoughts...
>>>
>>> Gary
>>> CW0146/N6SKK
>>> www.ag-weather.com
>>>
>>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 
>>>
>>>
>>> No virus found in this outgoing message.
>>> Checked by AVG Anti-Virus.
>>> Version: 7.0.323 / Virus Database: 267.7.7/20 - Release Date: 6/16/2005
>>>  
>>>
>>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 
>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> wxqc mailing list
>>> wxqc at lists.gladstonefamily.net
>>> http://pond1.gladstonefamily.net:8080/mailman/listinfo/wxqc
>>>  
>>>
>>
>>
>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>No virus found in this outgoing message.
>Checked by AVG Anti-Virus.
>Version: 7.0.323 / Virus Database: 267.7.7/20 - Release Date: 6/16/2005
>  
>