GW1000 driver doesn't save uv radiation by default?

[f4n...@gmail.com]

Is it normal that the GW1000 driver doesn't save uv radiation by default? 

I have a field "radiation" in the database, can I just add

[[field_map]]
radiation = uv

to use an existing schema entry?

I use WS80 and WH65 sensors (not on the same gw1100 and weewx-instance understandably) and would also like to plot signal and battery info. Could I use existing rxCheckPercent and consoleBatteryVoltage too (and renaming them in the label section) to save the sensor battery and signal info, or are these not compatible? Does the gw1000 API and/or gw driver record signal strength, or is it just counting how many consecutive successful signal packets recieved? (if so, how many are considered full signal?)

[gjr80]

On Friday, 5 August 2022 at 14:05:36 UTC+10 f4n...@gmail.com wrote:

Is it normal that the GW1000 driver doesn't save uv radiation by default? 

Not sure exactly what you mean here, the Ecowitt gateway driver merely reads and decodes data from an Ecowitt gateway device and presents this data to the WeeWX engine. WeeWX saves any data according to what data is presented by the driver and what database schema is in use. The distinction is subtle but important.

 

I have a field "radiation" in the database, can I just add

[[field_map]]
radiation = uv

to use an existing schema entry?

You can do that but I am not sure why you would want to, you will be creating problems for yourself. The WeeWX field radiation is typically used for solar insolation and a default WeeWX install is configured for the data in the radiation field to be interpreted as Watts per square metre. WeeWX also has a field named UV (note capitalisation) that is (in a default install) interpreted as a unit less UV index. The Ecowitt gateway driver internal field uv  is a UV index and is more appropriately mapped to WeeWX field UV. In fact, this is exactly what the Ecowitt gateway driver default field map does. If you save the uv field to the WeeWX radiation field then you will likely have unit issues within WeeWX unless you tell WeeWX that the radiation field is in fact a unit less UV index, but again why would you?

Exactly what data do you want? Solar insolation aka WeeWX field radiation, UV index aka WeeWX field UV or an absolute UV radiation flux value aka the Ecowitt field UV (note the Ecowitt field UV is measured in micro Watts per square metre)? Ecowitt approximates solar insolation from the light sensor (if one exists) luminosity value by dividing by 126.7. This approximate value is used by the Ecowitt device to upload to various on-line services. The Ecowitt gateway driver does not emit this calculated value as that is more appropriately calculated by the WeeWX StdCalibrate service.

You might want to read the Ecowitt gateway driver wiki page Understanding Ecowitt LAN Wi Fi Gateway API radiation fields.

 

I use WS80 and WH65 sensors (not on the same gw1100 and weewx-instance understandably) and would also like to plot signal and battery info. Could I use existing rxCheckPercent and consoleBatteryVoltage too (and renaming them in the label section) to save the sensor battery and signal info, or are these not compatible? Does the gw1000 API and/or gw driver record signal strength, or is it just counting how many consecutive successful signal packets recieved? (if so, how many are considered full signal?)

The Ecowitt gateway driver will output sensor signal level and battery state data for all connected sensors. You can run the driver directly (refer to step 4 in the Ecowitt gateway driver quick start) or run WeeWX directly to observe the signal level and battery state fields provided by the driver. The sensor battery state data varies by sensor, have a look at the Ecowitt gateway driver wiki page Sensor battery states for more detail. The signal level data provided by the API is not true signal level data, rather it is the number of the last four sensor packets that were successfully received by the gateway device, it is a number from 0 to 4 inclusive. You can certainly map the fields you are interested in to WeeWX fields rxCheckPercent and consoleBatteryVoltage but you will need to make sure the units of the mapped fields are the same (rxCheckPrecent is interpreted as a percentage and consoleBatteryVoltage is interpreted as a number of Volts) or you will need to tell WeeWX of the new units these fields will use. Alternatively, why not just add one or more new fields to the WeeWX database? This is easily done and avoids confusion as you can use self evident names for the fields. Have a look at the section Customizing the database in the WeeWX Customization Guide.

Gary