Overview

In addition to the three main areas of this website (the Buying Guide; the broad introduction to AWS systems and the support area), there is also a fourth related area that we're including because it is also poorly covered by other websites. This will deal with topics associated with more advanced configurations of PC-linked weather stations and, in contrast to the rest of this site, will assume some limited familiarity with the technical background to weather station data, to PC hardware and software use and, where relevant, to webpage design. Hopefully the content will still be accessible even to non-expert users, but there will be significantly less in the way of basic explanations.

This 'advanced' content will focus largely, but not exclusively, on issues to do with working with logged weather data in ways that go beyond those features provided by the standard software such as Weatherlink, for example, topics especially related to custom data handling - in other words creating custom programs. We'll aim to provide both general background in different approaches to data handling and also specific technical detail to help programmers interface to the weather data. This will initially be a relatively limited area (because other parts of the website have been the priority for development), but should in time grow to be a valuable resource of background and technical detail.

Advanced topics are currently organised within the following framework. Please see the detailed sections below for more information and links.

• Longer distance data links between weather station and PC;
• General aspects of weather software use in the local PC environment;
• Programming topics;
• Publishing weather data to web pages;

NB Only a few of the pages in this Advanced Topics section will be visible from the main dropdown menu to avoid overloading the general visitor with too much detail. You will need to use the direct links below to reach some of the pages.

Longer distance data links

The distance between data logger and PC is officially limited to 12m (40'), although this maximum can usually be increased somewhat without problems. However there are many methods to carry the data further, both locally and over long distances if necessary. These options are discussed on the longer distance data links page.

Additional weather hardware/software topics

• Commercial software;
• The role of the data logger;
• Data views available with weather station software;

Programming topics

• How PC weather databases work;
• Data exchange between programs;
• Image file size;

Web page topics

• Program configuration for running a weather website;
• Web server interactions;
• Options for including weather data in web pages;
• Custom web page software configurations;