weewx-aprs not reporting wind speed from Acurite 5 in 1 to aprs

[Noel Petit]

Running Weewx 3.8.0 with weewx-aprs extension creating aprs.pkt. The packet has ... for wind speed. But is reporting wind to weatherunderground and the local database creates the correct web page. This happened with the latest update of the Raspian operating system. 

Packet

_12091445c027s...g005t014r000h76b10181

No messages on /var/log/syslog indicating any errors. Data is good on weather underground and local web page. Did run correctly until last week's update. 

Thanks, 
Noel Petit

WB0VGI-1

[gjr80]

Hi,

I am guessing you are using rapid fire with WU? Rapid fire is based upon loop packets whereas the aprs extension takes its timing and data from archive records. For some reason there will be wind speed data in your loop packets (and hence WU is happy) but there is no wind speed data in your archive records (well maybe occassionally or all the time - we don't know yet) and hence you are are not seeing wind speed data in your aprs packets. To diagnose we will need a little more info:

1. What weather station are you using?
2. Can you post a sanitised copy of your weewx.conf (alternatively you can use wee_debug and post its output, if you do double check it for any sensitive info, wee_debug does a fair job at obfuscating passwords etc but its not perfect)
3. I know you said the log had no errors but even so it can provide useful indications as to what is going on and where to look. Could you edit weewx.conf, set debug=1, save weewx.conf then stop/start weeWX. Let weeWX run for a couple of archive intervals, say 10 minutes if your archive interval is 5 minutes. Then post a copy of the weeWX log from when you started weeWX, it's important we see the entire startup.
4. Run weeWX directly and observe the loop packets (indicated by lines starting with LOOP:) and archive records (indicated by lines starting with REC:) printed to screen. Post a copy of an archive record along with a few of the loop packets immediately before the archive record.

Gary

[gjr80]

Ok, just saw the subject so scrub step 1.

Gary

[Noel Petit]

Found the problem to be two things in weewx-aprs extension file (aprs.py)

 

1) Wind in the original code is "wind_average" which is not reported by Acurite. Change that to "windSpeed"

2) Symbol for wind speed in the original code is "c" and should be "/" Change that

When changing weewx-aprs  code (called aprs.py) you have to uninstall the extension, change the code and reinstall the extension. When uninstalling an extension it wipes out the original downloaded weewx-aprs source so you have to rebuild all of this from scratch. 

I made those  changes to the original aprs.py. When the upgrade came along a couple weeks ago it unchanged aprs.py back to the original . 

Thanks for those who made suggestions. 

Noel Petit

WB0VGI-1

Harris, MN

 

[gjr80]

Noel,

Meant to reply earlier but time got away from me.

When changing weewx-aprs  code (called aprs.py) you have to uninstall the extension, change the code and reinstall the extension. When uninstalling an extension it wipes out the original downloaded weewx-aprs source so you have to rebuild all of this from scratch.

The documentation on the use of the wee_extension utility is not quite as thorough as perhaps it should be. Generally speaking if you install an extension using wee_extension that is what you should use to upgrade the extension and (if desired) ultimately remove the extension. This works well when you have an extension author that publishes updated versions. If this is not the case, or you just decide you want to change some of the code, there is no need to uninstall the extension - you can make changes to the installed .py files or config stanzas in weewx.conf directly. A weeWX restart will be required for these changes to take effect but defintely no need to uninstall/change/install. The problem with this approach is that you have now likely compromised the extension installer and any subsequent use of wee_extension may result in an unpredictable outcome or loss of your changes. For example, if you have made local changes to some of an extensions files and the the extension author publishes a new version of the extension, the use of wee_extension to install the new version will result in loss of any local chnages. As a rule of thumb, once you make local changes you are best not to use the extension installer but rather install upgrades to that extension manually. Other extensions are not affected.

New versions of an extension are normally installed by simply installing the new version using wee_extension. If local changes have been made to .py files these will be lost, but if you are making local changes you should be using wee_extension. Changes to the extensions config stanza in weewx.conf (if used) will be preserved and a backup copy made and saved.

I made those  changes to the original aprs.py. When the upgrade came along a couple weeks ago it unchanged aprs.py back to the original .

I guess you mean the weeWX 3.8.0 upgrade changed aprs.py? If so I am stumped, the weeWX installer does not make chnages to bin/user, its contents are left alone during an upgrade. The only things that should be making changes to bin/user are the user and wee_extension.

Gary