Fine Offset Weather Stations

Many of the entry level weather stations can be classified as "EasyWeather" or "FineOffset"; they are rebadged or generic models of the device produced by FineOffSet Electronics

The software shipped with the device is EasyWeather (or EasyWeatherPlus for models with solar sensors) and while it peforms its role of reading and storing data from the weather station, it is quite limiting and inflexible. Of course, if you are reading this you have probably already switched to Cumulus and found its advantages.

Note on Models

Fine Offset manuafactured models are sold under various rebadged names and the specification of models will vary with time, so please treat the following table based on their website in 2012 as a rough guide of their models that have PC interfaces:

Model	Console Display and Function	Powered by	Sensors	Clock
WH1080	landscape shaped touchscreen	solar (for remote unit)	4 outdoor sensors: thermo-hydro transmitter connnected by one flex to wind speed anemonmeter and wind direction vane on a 'T' shaped mounting and with a second connecting flex to a rain tipping bucket	manual
WH1081	landscape shaped touchscreen	battery	4 outdoor sensors: as 1080	manual
WH1090	portrait shaped touchscreen	battery	4 outdoor sensors: thermo-hydro transmitter, wind speed anemonmeter, wind direction vane and rain tipping bucket	manual
WH2080	portrait shaped with 6 square buttons	battery	4 outdoor sensors: as 1080	radio-controlled
WA2081	portrait shaped with buttons	solar (for remote unit)	4 outdoor sensors: as 1080	manual
WH2081	portrait shaped with buttons	solar (for remote unit)	4 outdoor sensors: as 1080	radio-controlled
WH2090	portrait shaped with buttons	battery	4 integrated outdoor sensors: thermo-hydro transmitter, wind speed anemonmeter below wind direction vane, and (on top of transmitter) rain tipping bucket	manual
WH3080	small screen with 6 large rectangular buttons	solar (for remote unit)	6 outdoor sensors: measurements of UV index and solar illuminance, thermo-hydro transmitter, wind speed anemonmeter, wind direction vane and rain tipping bucket	radio-controlled
WH3081	small screen with buttons	solar (for remote unit)	6 outdoor sensors: measurements of UV index and solar illuminance, thermo-hydro transmitter, wind speed anemonmeter, wind direction vane and rain tipping bucket	manual

Do note that WH108x series display rolling 24 hour rainfall on console, WH308x series show rainfall since midnight on console.

Note that transmission frequencies, and protocols may vary for the same model with a different country of sale, for different dealers (or by how rebadged), and/or by date of manufacture. Although non-integrated wind measuring and rain measuring sensors using connecting leads should be interchangeable between many models (despite some design variations), the thermonmeter/hygrometer/transmitter unit and console have to be replaced as a pair because of their specific frequencies and protocols.

Memory Map

This page describes in some detail the data records produced by the various Fine Offset devices (WH1080, WH1081, W-8681, WH3080, WH3081 etc.). The weather station's history is stored in 4080 times 16-byte records for models without UV/solar detectors and 3264 times 20-byte records in the 3080/3081 models with the UV/solar detector.

Thanks to Jim Easterbrook for all his work on pulling this data together http://www.jim-easterbrook.me.uk/

The File Format

The following are some useful technical links on the EasyWeather format

EasyWeather.mdb

Version 7.y of Easyweather software uses this, a different database type to Easyweather software version 6. The new file cannot be viewed by text file viewers nor standard database file viewers that I have tried. It will not be compatible with the version 6.x 'EasyWeather.dat' reader in Cumulus.

EasyWeather.dat

Fine Offset weather stations, without solar or UV measurements, store all the observations in easyweather.dat when the EasyWeather software version 6.x is running. The file format for this has been described in detail here. (You can view easyweather.dat like any text file either using a text file editor like Notepad or by using a database file viewer).

This topic suggests that weather stations using smartweather software create a file that can be read using the technique in Usage of Easyweather.dat fields section below.

EasyWeatherPlus.dat

Fine Offset weather stations that record Solar and UV measurements output to EasyWeatherPlus.dat file when Easyweather software version 6.x is running. This has the same fields as easyweather.dat, plus two extra fields for Solar and UV data at the end.

Cumulus 1.9.4 beta build 1071 is first build that for 'easyweather.dat' input method will Read UV and Lux values from easyweatherplus.dat file if 'extra sensors' selected. Here is an example of an EasyWeatherPlus.dat record: 8363, 2013-04-26 15:21:32, 2013-04-26 00:25:07, 5, 60, 20.6, 67, 15.2, 9.1, 12.6, 1010.3, 1018.7, 3.1, 2, 4.1, 3, 0, N, 20, 19666.8, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 6.3, 352.2, 352.2, 0.0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0054C0, 2420, 05 3C CE 00 43 98 00 77 27 1F 29 00 00 14 00 00 00 00 00 00 ,

Transferring past observations from EasyWeather.dat to Cumulus

Normally those using Cumulus software will stop using EasyWeather software, but the guidance below is for importing missing historic observations contained in easyweather.dat: If you were archiving your Fine Offset Easyweather.dat files, you probably need to rename the latest one,and restore the relevant old one before you follow these instructions.

Now to import EasyWeather data from a period before you started using Cumulus, close Cumulus and run EasyWeather. It is best if you make a backup copy of your EasyWeather directory before you do any more.

In the EasyWeather program use the History option on the Record menu.
Select 'user defined' in Search Conditions box. Select a start time before you got your weather station, leave end time at default of today.
Click Export button, tick Header, choose as Separator: the symbol that is used to separate fields in your Monthly log files.
Click Export button below the separator, complete the 'Save as ...' for a text file, and wait a couple of minutes (depending on size of file).
Open resulting file in a text editor and see hints in Monthly log files on how to convert between formats.
For dayfile.txt, you can create missing data from the newly created monthly log files, but you still may wish to insert breaks at rollover time in your raw EasyWeather table, possibly adding calculation of maximua or minima to such meteorological day groups, so you can scan though each day to check what has been created in dayfile.txt and edit as required.

If you were archiving your Easyweather.dat files, you may need to repeat the whole above process for futher source files, until you have the whole period you want. When Sfws did this process, he tried to merge the exported files before creating the Cumulus logs, but dealing with 2 full years of frequent pre-Cumulus observations meant he had a massive spreadsheet with almost a million cells, and it made separation into day by day or month by month for feeding into the Cumulus logs more difficult.

Station configuration screen: Using 'EasyWeather.dat' file as current station type

You might want to run EasyWeather software, perhaps for testing purposes, and use its output file as the source for Cumulus software on a short term basis. (Both software programmes need to run continuously for this to work). As an alternative to the bulk transfer above (that was for transfer of historic observations), Cumulus at all versions has the option to read the latest observations directly from an easyweather.dat file if Easyweather (using .datfile) is selected as the station type (see Cumulus help for how to fill in the station configuration screen) and process the last line only.

From version 1.9.4 build 1071 onwards Cumulus assumes 'easyWeatherPlus.dat' format if extra sensors ticked and 'easyweather.dat' format if extra sensors is unticked.

Remember, it is better to select the Fine Offset (WH1080 etc) station type (this reads observations by most models directly via USB without EasyWeather software) for normal operational purposes (again see Cumulus help for station configuration screen) as that allows Cumulus to do more, including coping with non-continuous running. If your station model measures UV and solar light intensities, the recommended station type selection is Fine Offset with UV/Light sensor.

Usage of easyweather.dat fields for Cumulus input of latest record:

People with non Fine Offset stations may wish to create data in this format for input to Cumulus. See the forum (http://sandaysoft.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=4344) for more details: Cumulus does not see any station date and time fields when reading a Fine Offset weather station received transmission or processing readings in its memory via USB. Note when reading easyweather.dat (or equivalent format input), Cumulus does read the station originated date and time fields, and checks that they have changed before using new data from the file.

Here's the format of the 'easyweather.dat' file, with the fields Cumulus uses in bold. The separator between each field can either be a space or a comma, both are treated the same.

0 - Record no
1 - Transfer date
2 - Transfer time
3 - Reading date
4 - Reading time
5 - Interval
6 - Indoor Hum
7 - Indoor Temp
8 - Outdoor Hum
9 - Outdoor Temp
10 - dew point
11 - wind chill
12 - absolute pressure
13 - rel pressure
14 - wind average
15 - wind average bft
16 - wind gust
17 - wind gust bft
18 - wind direction number
19 - wind direction text (N, ENE etc, converted to a bearing as an integer)
20 - rain tip counter
21 - rain total
22 - rain since last reading
23 - rain in last hour (used as rain rate)
24 - rain last 24 hours
25 - rain last 7 days
26 - rain last 30 days
27 - rain last year (used as rain 'counter' to determine other totals)

For easyweatherplus.dat only:

28 - light reading (in Lux)
29 - UV index

EasyWeather Format

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