[Xastir] Xastir and Ultimeter weather station

[Chip Griffin]

On Jan 19, 2008, at 20:32, Alex Carver wrote:

> Steve can fill in a lot of the details but he's trying to use two  
> computers with one Ultimeter and doesn't want to split the serial  
> ports in hardware, instead he's going to try splitting the port by  
> software.


I got the impression that the plan for two computers was only an  
interim solution. The tone of the first message seemed to be that he  
was migrating the weather over to Mac too if he could. I'd like to  
see the documentation improved in this area. I haven't done weather  
yet either. I don't even have the hardware yet. I'm leaning toward  
One-Wire Weather (OWW) but haven't even been able to determine if it  
is compatible with Xastir yet. This is what the help file says  
currently:

>                      Configure a Serial WX Station
>
> Set the serial port device for your WX unit. Common values of /dev/ 
> ttyS0
> (COM1) or /dev/ttyS1 (COM2) can be used.
>
> Comment will allow you to set a friendly name or comment for the port.
>
> Selecting "Activate on start up" will tell Xastir to look for this  
> device and
> set up communications with it when the program first starts.
>
> Now set the bps rate under port settings, and the parameters under  
> port
> style. Port Style setting 8N1 is used for 8 data bits, No parity  
> and 1 stop
> bit. 7E1 is used for 7 data bits, even parity and 1 stop bit. 7O1  
> is used for
> 7 data bits, odd parity, and 1 stop bit. These parameters must  
> match your WX
> unit. The Data Type option will allow you to override what type of  
> serial data
> the program will look for. The auto-detect feature will first look  
> for Weather
> data in a binary type as the Radio Shack WX-200 uses. If no binary  
> data is
> found in the stream, Xastir will look for an ASCII type of WX  
> station (like
> Peet Bros.).
>
> Now set the Rain Gauge correction factor. Xastir requires that the  
> rain gauge
> report in .01 inch increments. If the unit reports in .1 inch or .1  
> millimeter
> increments, a correction must be specified to obtain accurate  
> measurements.

This gives me the impression that only Radio Shack and Peet Bros  
units are compatible. I don't see anything in any of the README files  
that adds to what is here. The FAQ only adds the following when  
talking about redirecting serial ports (how does that really have to  
do with setting up a weather station anyway):

>     if you wish to put your weather station on a remote serial port,
>     investigate using OWW (for Dallas weather stations), wx200d
>     daemon for some Radio Shack/Huger/Oregon Scientific weather
>     stations, or Meteo daemon for Davis weather stations.

So it seems we could use some help gathering the collective  
consciousness relating to (a) what is compatible and (b) how to set  
it up and write up some docs to go into (a) the help file, (b) the  
FAQ, and (c) a README file (perhaps a new one dedicated to weather  
stuff). I would contribute toward this goal, but I have no knowledge  
of the topic (yet).


-- Chip