Thunder Road Posted December 7, 2010 Share Posted December 7, 2010 I have a Dvais Vantage Vue, but no software to accompany it. The Davis software is a bit expensive for me. Therefore, I'm looking into Virtual Weather Station, which is pretty reasonable on ambient weather. Is it a good software? User-friendly for the somewhat-computer-literate like myself? Also, what is the difference between the basic and the pro? Does pro offer more stuff, or is it just more technical to use? Thanks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Martin Posted December 7, 2010 Share Posted December 7, 2010 From AmbientWeather The Base Edition provides real-time display of the weather data, including custom dials, gauges, graphs, strip charts and images. The Pro Edition includes all of the features in the Base Edition and adds detailed data analysis and reports, including daily, monthly and yearly reports. The Internet Edition version provides all of the features in the Base and Pro Edition and adds Internet publishing features. I have the Internet Edition and it is excellent. It works very well. If you want to publish your data to the web (wunderground, weatherbug, etc) then that is the way to go! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Isopycnic Posted December 7, 2010 Share Posted December 7, 2010 I run both Weatherlink and VWS via the Virtual VP program. VWS is good for its realtime streaming and html creation. I personally like the WL interface. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaculaWeather Posted December 7, 2010 Share Posted December 7, 2010 I have Weatherlink but don't use it, instead I use both VWS and Weather-Display. Each has it's own advantages and disadvantages. VWS is easier to get running and does pretty much everything most people want to do. For the most flexible and customizable path, Weather-Display is the way to go. There are website templates for both pieces of software but there are many more add-on pages and scripts for WD. I originally started my site using VWS only and added WD last July. My live current conditions are updated by VWS along with my NOAA climate files. WD handles other record keeping chores including an once a minute upload of data to a SQL server I have. The use of both has allowed me to get more creative in what and how I display things. You MUST use the Internet Edition of VWS to post to the Internet. Several pieces of software I WOULD recommend. One, Star****ch. (the system is *** it out, it's Start Watch all one word) It monitors your applications and if it detects lock ups, crashes, etc, it will attempt to shut down and restart the offending application. Weather software appears to not be the most stable of software I've used and tends to lose it sometimes. Star****ch will keep you running 24/7. The other is only if you decide to run more than one piece of software that needs access to the console, and that's Virtual VP made by the same company that makes Star****ch. It interfaces between the datalogger and your other software and acts as a communications traffic cop. Templates for both packages can be found here: http://saratoga-weather.org just click on scripts. Let me know if you have any more questions, more than happy to try to answer them for you! EDIT: Two great sites for information on weather stations/software are: http://www.wxforum.com (everything) and http://www.weather-watch.com (Mostly Weather-Display info) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaculaWeather Posted December 7, 2010 Share Posted December 7, 2010 I have a Dvais Vantage Vue, but no software to accompany it. The Davis software is a bit expensive for me. Therefore, I'm looking into Virtual Weather Station, which is pretty reasonable on ambient weather. Is it a good software? User-friendly for the somewhat-computer-literate like myself? Also, what is the difference between the basic and the pro? Does pro offer more stuff, or is it just more technical to use? Thanks. Question though... it sounds like you don't have a datalogger, the missing piece between your console and computer. THAT's why the Davis software is so expensive. You're basically getting the software for free, what you're buying is the datalogger and you HAVE to have that to talk to the pc, it's a bundled package. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CNYWeather Posted December 7, 2010 Share Posted December 7, 2010 I'll cast another vote for Weather Display. Amazing what you can get it to do. Plus the multitude of scripts that get written (for FREE) will also make you quite happy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thunder Road Posted December 7, 2010 Author Share Posted December 7, 2010 Question though... it sounds like you don't have a datalogger, the missing piece between your console and computer. THAT's why the Davis software is so expensive. You're basically getting the software for free, what you're buying is the datalogger and you HAVE to have that to talk to the pc, it's a bundled package. This seems like it could be an issue... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaculaWeather Posted December 7, 2010 Share Posted December 7, 2010 If money is an issue, buy the datalogger and either use the bundled software that comes with it (Weatherlink) or another free piece of software, Cumulus. Then, once you get a feel for how it all works together, you can move to WD or VWS. No matter which choice you make, you can still send your data to Wunderground, CWOP, and others by using the free (or bundled) software. Let me know if I can help! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaculaWeather Posted December 7, 2010 Share Posted December 7, 2010 The datalogger plugs into the bottom of your console, and comes in two flavors, USB or serial. There is also an IP version but it doesn't offer the flexibility that the other two options do. Just in case... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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