User Defined Product File

The next beta release of Weather Message will add a user defined Product file.  In the current release, users that want to change the descriptions of products manually change Product.dat.  If they have user defined products, they update this file with their specific information.

The Weather Message Program Update installer asks the user if they want to install a revised Product.dat.  If this question is answered Yes, the installer overwrites the user's Product.dat.  In most cases that is not a problem.  For those users that are manually maintaining their Product.dat, it is a big problem.  The user can always restore the Product.dat file from the backup folder.  They however will not get the updated product file.

In the next beta, users that want to modify the product.dat file should update ProductUser.dat instead.  All additions and changes will be added or overwrite those in Product.dat.  This will allow users to easily add and change products without losing the ability to receive an updated Product.dat file.

This capability will allow me to easily define user specific products for the siren controller application.  I will not have to worry that the next update will wipe out my settings.

Thanks for the suggestion Todd.

Senate, House, Noaa, FCC Contacts

Regarding FCC ET Docket No. 10-123:  If you do not know your senator or representative's contact information, you can use the following links.

Representative
https://writerep.house.gov/writerep/welcome.shtml

Senator
http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm

Noaa Administrator

Dr. Jane Lubchenco

Under Secretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere and NOAA Administrator
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

1401 Constitution Avenue, NW
Room 5128
Washington, DC 20230
jane.lubchenco@noaa.gov

National Weather Service Administrator

Dr. Jack Hayes

Assistant Administrator for Weather Services and Director, National Weather Service
National Weather Service
1325 East West Highway
Silver Spring, MD 20910
jack.hayes@noaa.gov

Department of Commerce Secretary
 
Secretary Gary Locke

United States Department of Commerce
1401 Constitution Ave., NW
Washington, DC 20230


FCC Filing

http://fjallfoss.fcc.gov/ecfs/

EMWIN Satellite Transmission Threatened

On June 4, 2010 the FCC Office of Engineering and Technology "Requests Information on use of 1675 – 1710 MHz Band", ET Docket No. 10-123.  They are requesting information on the current users of this frequency spectrum.  The EMWIN Satellite data stream uses 1690.725 Mhz and 1692.7 Mhz. 

This release seeks to reallocate this frequency spectrum for "broad band" internet.  This action would completely destroy EMWIN and LRIT services. Users have until June 28, 2010 to comment on this request.  See FCC Release for more information.

I plan on posting a reply and writing to NOAA and my congressmen.  Now is the time for action - all EMWIN users, both satellite and internet based, should object to any reallocation.

I will be updating the blog on this as I learn more.

Support for WinFax Pro retired in 3.7 release

Support for WinFax Pro will be removed from Weather Message version 3.7.  WinFax Pro is no longer being sold by Symantec.  According to wikipedia, "Symantec discontinued sales and support of WinFax PRO on June 30, 2006."

Users that need support for WinFax Pro can continue to use version 3.6.

AT&T Natural Voices on 64 bit Windows 7

It took some time to figure out how to get the AT&T Natural Voices to work on Windows 7 64 bit.  Apparently the control panel applet for selecting the default voice only works with 64 bit voices (Anna). 

In order to change the 32 voices, you have to run:
             %windir%\SysWOW64\speech\SpeechUX\sapi.cpl

This is the 32 bit control panel applet.  I need to keep reminding myself to look at the 32 bit control panels when I cannot get something to work.

Dell T1500

I am in the process of changing out my old Dell 8400 3.4ghz Windows XP system with a new Dell T1500 i7 2.8 ghz Windows 7 64bit system.  I already have spent about 6 hours reloading all of the software.  I am still not finished.

There are some software applications that I have not been able to get to run on Windows 7 64 bit.  For the most part everything else seems to work. 

I will say that this is a nice computer.

Get control over the Message Box position

Alot of the Weather Message programs display message boxes to tell the user that they entered something wrong or to ask a Yes or No question.  The built-in message box appears centered in the screen.  You cannot center it over the calling form without a bunch of win32 calls.

I took several hours this morning to write a new message box class.  This message box works like the old one and has two new features.  It can be centered over the calling form and it now has the ability to automatically close after a programmed number of seconds.

I will be working to change the existing message box calls to this new class.  Users will not have to chase after the message box when this change is completed.

EMWIN Software Demodulator

Several users have reported problems with installing the NWS EMWIN Software Demodulator on Windows 7 computers.  Those problems are related with User Account Control (UAC).  In most cases turning off UAC allowed the software to install properly. 

I had a user attempt to install the EMWIN Software Demodulator on a Windows 7 64 bit system.  The NWS installer kept reporting that Data1.cab was corrupted.  Right now I don't know why it reported that file as corrupted.

In order to get around this problem, I created a new installer for the EMWIN Software Demodulator.  The new installer corrects a number of problems associated with Windows 7 (and I suspect Vista).  The new installer does not require the user to unzip the installer to a directory, then run setup.exe.  It also defaults the demodulator to the EMWIN-N signal (19200 speed).

For Windows 7 users, with UAC enabled, the EMWIN Control panel would not start or stop the Data Source or Demodulator services.  This happend because the control panel applet was not running with elevated privileges.  The new installer creates the menu option with the options necessary to launch the control panel with elevated privileges.  (WxEmwin should start it properly.)

I went ahead and included the Weather Message Software Demodulator extentions.  These extensions allow the EMWIN Software Demodulator to send status message to WxEmwin so that it can display operational information about the EMWIN Software Demodulator.

The NWS EMWIN Software Demodulator is provided free by the National Weather Service.  The repackaged installer is available on the Weather Message website.

Weather Message 3.6 Released

Weather Message V3.6 has been released. You can download the update at http://www.wxmesg.com/downloadsnet.htm. For information on what has changed in this release, please read the release notes.

There are over 80 changes in this release. Here are some highlights.

• Email subsystem now supports secure connections.
• VTEC settings will now automatically populate based on the alarmed product.
• The Message and Map clients can now automatically locate Weather Message Server on the network.
• Support for posting to Twitter and Facebook.
• Cell phone product email address lookup.
• See the release notes for a complete list of changes.

Thanks for all of your suggestions, bug reports and assistance with the software. Work will begin on version 3.7 right away.  Watch the beta page for updates.

Suggestions for 3.7

• Release Weather Message Web Based User Manager
• Add support for scrolling LED signs.

WxDataSave, WxLocal and the Retransmission applications have been respectively released along with Weather Message 3.6. If you are using any of these applications, they must be upgraded at the same time you upgrade Weather Message.

Note: I have a number of pending requests. I will begin to address these over the coming months.

GOES 12 - drifting to 60 degrees - now transmitting

The GOES 12 satellite is now drifting to 60 degrees. The drift is about .5 degrees per day. As of yesterday, the satellite is back transmitting 9600 baud EMWIN data.

For those of you that do not have a 19,200 receive system and cannot see the west coast satellite, you should be able to reposition to receive the GOES 12 data stream. The satellite will continue drifting until it arrives at 60 degrees around May 21.

I have not tried to receive the signal yet, but will over the weekend. My dish, due to mounting location, cannot be positioned to the west coast satellite.

New Feature ??? Scrolling LED Signs

One of my customers has a scrolling LED sign.  While talking to the customer, I mentioned that I was interested in seeing Weather Message control an LED sign.  One thing led to another and I ordered me one today for testing.

This is a picture of the Pro-Lite PL-M2014RV6.

This may be a good job for WxLoader.  I will know more when my unit arrives from California sometime next week.

Microsoft Releases the .Net Framework Version 4

Microsoft has released the .Net Framework Version 4.  The framework was released with the Visual Studio 2010 development environment.  I will be upgrading my development environment at some point in the very new future. 

I recommend that users go ahead and download the new framework at their convenience.  This will save you time when I release a software version that requires the version 4 framework.  You may also get some enhancements from the new framework.  You can download the latest version from this link Framework 4.

Testing the new EMWIN Internet Feed

My EMWIN byte blaster server is participating in a test of the new EMWIN Internet Feed.  It has been serving the new data stream for 18 hours now.  Everything looks good with no problems encountered.

Each connected client should consume about 19kb of bandwidth.  Some clients (ingest programs) can received compressed packets which reduces the bandwidth requirements.  Right now with 40 clients connected, the average bandwidth used is around 510kb.  That averages out to 13kb per connected client.

I have been submitting routine reports to the EMWIN Team.  I hope they find the test successful and begin moving all servers to the new EMWIN feed.

GOES-12 (East) has transitioned to GOES-13 (East)

At 15:35 UTC, the GOES-12 EMWIN feed transitioned to GOES-13.  GOES-13 is now transmitting EMWIN data at 19200 baud using QPSK modulation.

This was a big undertaking that has been planned for many years.  Thanks goes to all the people involved.  A special thanks to the EMWIN Team at NWS HQ who have been kind enough to answer my numerious inquiries.

Converting Werner Labs 3 foot dish to 6 foot

Tom Moore sent me some pictures showing his conversion of a Werner Labs 3 foot dish to his 6 foot dish.  He said it increased the signal strength and reduced his error rate.

Here is a picture of the original Werner dish.

Tom removed the antenna and moved it to the 6 foot dish.  Here is a picture of it installed on the big dish.

Here is a close up of the antenna mount.

Using Weather Message to update your Facebook status

Weather Message 3.6 Beta C allows users to update their Facebook status.  To send status updates to Facebook, you will need do do the following.  (Make sure you have version 3.6 Beta C installed)

1. Go to Facebook and click on Mobile at the bottom of the page.
2. Look for Upload via Email.  You need your upload email address.  (I had to click on an option at the top of the page that opened a window with the email address.  My next visit to the mobile page showed the email address on the main page.)
3. Setup a Facebook email group.
4. Set the Style for this group to Short.
5. Set the Subject Style to Full.
6. In the Subject Override line enter $Message$ (this causes the message to appear in the subject line)
7. Enter your Facebook upload email address in the email address box.
8. Save the Facebook group.
9. Associate this group with the alarms that you want sent to Facebook.

GOES East Transition still scheduled for April 26

The NWS issued a Public Information Statement today reminding EMWIN users of the pending GOES East satellite transition.  Here is an excerpt from the PNS.

THE NATIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL SATELLITE DATA AND INFORMATION SERVICE RECENTLY SET THE DATE FOR GOES 13 SATELLITE TO REPLACE GOES 12 /EAST/ SATELLITE AS ON OR ABOUT APRIL 26 2010. DUE TO CHANGES IN THE SATELLITE CONFIGURATION THAT PROVIDE THE EMERGENCY MANAGERS WEATHER INFORMATION NETWORK /EMWIN/ BROADCAST... EMWIN USERS MUST TAKE ACTION TO ENSURE CONTINUED RECEPTION OF THIS DATA SERVICE.

ON OR BEFORE APRIL 26 2010 USERS WITH LEGACY EMWIN SYSTEMS WILL NEED TO REPOINT TO GOES WEST OR UPGRADE TO AN EMWIN-N CAPABLE SYSTEM. LEGACY USERS SHOULD TRY REPOINTING TO GOES WEST AS SOON AS POSSIBLE TO DETERMINE IF THEY WILL BE ABLE TO ACQUIRE THE SIGNAL FROM THEIR LOCATION.

Website - T1 upgrade

The Weather Message website got a speed increase yesterday.  The Internet connection went from 1.5mb to 6mb.  This should make downloads much faster.  It now has 4 bonded T1's.

Weather Message Version 3.6 Beta A(10) posted

Weather Message Version 3.6 Beta A(10) has been posted to the website.  This beta contains a few changes to address some reported issues and add a couple of new features.  We are nearing the end of the 3.6 beta process.  I hope that version 3.6 can be released in a couple of weeks.

With each beta, the Weather Message beta testers load the betas and report their results.  I install each one on my production computer for a full evaluation.  If you are testing this beta, let me know if you encounter any issues.

Lightning - Probably time to upgrade to Windows 7

My network took a lightning strike this morning at 5:35.  I was already up and moving around when I heard that "pop" coming from the computer/radio room.

I lost two wireless routers, an on board lan card in the development computer.  I don't have any phone service.  The ham repeater will talk but not listen.  I am sure there are other devices down, but will not know until I start restoring some of the things.

Good news is the internet satellite did not die, EMWIN receiver is good, and NOAAPort is working great.  Some people build great equipment and charge a little extra for lightning protection in their equipment.    I don't think the parts in the LinkSys with stood the test...

I am now considering a new development computer.   Lightning -- yes time to consider upgrading.