After being a long time FSMeteo user, I have sucummbed to the recent promotional pricing for AS2004 - mainy out of curiosity and not because of any significant disatisfaction with FSMeteo. AS2004 is an interesting attempt at providing a real weather solution and the developers are to be commended for their ongoing commitment to further enhance the product. However my initial impression is that you can't in any simple way install AS2004 with the default settings, go to your favourite airport and necessarily get weather that approximates current real world conditions. For example the weather on the south east coast of Australia at the moment is very clear with unlimited visiblity and no cloud.YSSY 010200Z 33007KT CAVOK 18/02 Q1020 RMK RF00.0/000.0 NOSIGYSSY 302251Z 010024 24010KT CAVOK FM06 30010KT CAVOKHowever when I fire up FS9 and AS2004 and go to YSSY I see a significant layer of low level cumulus that magically seems to vanish once I am airborne and some 10-20 miles from the airport. The cumulus doesn't re-appear if I make a 180 and return to the aiport. But if I exit and reload FS9 and AS2004 this cumulus layer is back (the METAR and TAF are the same as previous). Now if I disable CAVOK cloud generation the cumulus layer doesn't occur but in its place is a layer of haze up to about 4000 ft and this haze seems to follow you as you fly out to sea or down the coast. The only way to get rid of the haze is to set cloud layers to zero and with that I finaly have weather looking like current real world conditions. The other hassle I have is that when I initially fire up AS2004 I don't get the most recent weather. For example, this morning the date stamp was 300650Z initially. It was only after several exits and reloads of FS9 and AS2004 that the 010200Z date stamp appeared.More positively last night I flew a PMDG 737NG from YPPH across Australia to YSSY and didn't encounter any wind shear and there seemed to be more enroute reporting stations than is the case with FSMeteo. However in areas of significan't cloud frame rates were very poor with my lowly AMD 1900 (despite having installed the FSW high perf. cloud set).Bruce

Another query.Is it possible to fix this visibility anomaly - see attachment? Bruce

You can minimize that visibility anomaly using FSW's fix - its included in the highest FPS pack, and is a replacement cirrus cloud layer with much better visibility.I hope that someone (like jim) jumps in here, but what you're seeing with weather downloads is not the common experience - you should be getting current weather so something is wrong. It might be possible that the weather server is missing updated Australia weather, or maybe that specific site updates infrequently? Also, you should check that your time zone is being detected correctly, and that weather being reported by AS2k4 is not a TAF...Just some ideas.Best,sg

Hi Bruce and welcome,First thing: Please copy and paste your AS2004.ini file. I'll take a look and see why you are not gett the current METARs.Next: I went to YSSY and flew around a bit and saw that haze layer also. (Scott and All, if you read this, it's the same kind of haze we are seeing over at Yahoo, a large moving patch of haze.) We are looking into this issue also.With heavy clouds you may need to adjust your visual settings in FS, especially cloud draw distance. Post that file when you get a chance and I'll take a look.Hope this helps,JimActiveSky Supporthttp://www.hifisim.com/images/as2004proudsupporter.jpg

Thank you both for your prompt replies. Again today when I loaded AS2004 it had a date stamp of 010650 - about 20 hours old. I refreshed several times but no change. Then I exited and reloaded and finaly got weather for 020250Z. I will try the same thing tommorrow will post the ini file if the problem persist before reloading.I was under the impression that I had installed the Chris Willis cloud fix but will check this and report back. The screenshot was from the highlands of Papua New Guinea with valleys at 7 to 8 thousand feet and mountains over 12 thousand feet but the nearest metar stations are on the coast so that may be part of the problem.One other observation I meant to make is that FSMeteo provides a decode local option that translates the METAR or TAF into plain English - there doesn't seem to be a similar feature in AS2004. I know the manual provides a decoder but it too is quite difficult to interpret and doesn't cover some of the elements I am seeing. For example what does RMK RF00.0/000.0 and NOSIG mean?Bruce

AS2004 has started interferring with the throttle settings of aircraft. Throttles become unresponsive and the aircraft (all types) overspeed and crash shortly after takeoff. If I disable all weather and disconnect AS2004 things return to normal. Also no problems if I fly without AS2004 or if I use FSMeteo.This problem has only just developed after a couple of days use. What on earth could cause such bizarre behaviour? I went back to the default settings but still have the same problem. Grateful for any suggestions.AS2004.ini as below//AS2004 configuration file[General]WindowPosX = 20925WindowPosY = 6495DefaultWeatherFolder = D:GamesFS2004ModulesActiveSky2004SuppressionCeiling = 2000SurfaceWindLimit = 10CloudLayerLimit = 5LocalSuppressionRange = 100MinimumVisibility = 0MaximumVisibility = 50IncreasedWake = FalseDisableWindsAloft = FalseForceDestinationWeatherZone = FalsePreventIcing = TrueOnlineUpdates = FalseExtendedDestinationWindsForce = FalseGlobalWrites = FalseVoicePlayback = TrueLocalSuppression = TrueStartupSound = TrueUseProxyServer = FalseFogLayerGeneration = TrueUpdateSuppression = TrueOvercastEnhancement = TrueRouteWindSmoothing = TrueLimitSurfaceWinds = FalseLimitCloudLayers = TrueAutoGlobalWriteToggle = TrueCCWindsFix = TrueDisableUpperLayerGeneration = FalseVisibilitySmoothing = TrueDisableMessages = FalseAutoTimeZoneDetection = TrueUpdateInterval = 10VATSIMData = FalseZuluConversion = 0TAFProcessing = FalseEnforceVisibilityLimits = TrueWakeTurb = TrueStartPaused = FalseUseSystemTime = TrueDisableCAVOKClouds = FalseProxyAddress = NONEBruce

Hi Bruce,You will be happy with most of this:1. You are not getting updates because you are in Offline Mode. In Options please check the Online Updates box.2. Try the following suggestions: Set Supression Ceiling to 10000 Set Local Suppression Range to 503. For the codes: RMK=remarks NOSIG=no significant change RF=I couldn't find anything on this.4. The trouble you had this morning may have been due to some data problems on our end. It caused the air temps to be reported as -273. That is what may have caused your throttle problems.Edit: One question: Are you in the zero zulu time zone?Please give these things a try!Hope this helps,JimActiveSky Supporthttp://www.hifisim.com/images/as2004proudsupporter.jpg

The cirrus fix is in the highest FPS clouds pack here: http://fsw.simflight.com/FSWFs2k4fix.htmlHere's the screenshots included in Chris' archive:Default:http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/82436.jpgChris' Cirrus:http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/82437.jpgBest,sg

JimThanks for the temp bug advice - I should have been more observant because when I loaded up AS2004 this morning, as with other days, I got yesterday's weather with the -273 temps! The ini file posted previously was with defaults reset (trying to debug the engine problem) and at least on my system this turns off online updates. Even with online updates loaded I still seem to get old weather initially, but at least it only takes an exit and reload to fix the problem. This may be due to my ISP using an aggressive proxy server, unless you can offer a better explanation. After a reload AS2004 seems to be working fine this morning.Re the haze issue. I have attached a couple of screenshots from a flight over the SE coast of Australia - the real world weather is clear with unlimited visibility. The first one is with AS2004 and the following weather (cloud layers set to 0 effectively very little weather) - haze layer quite obviousYSCM 021100Z 23005KT CAVOK 12/08 Q1023 RMK RF00.0/000.0 NOSIG RMK AUTO GENERATED AS2004YSCM 021037Z 021212 04005KT CAVOK FM14 31008KT 9999 FEW030 FM03 02012KT CAVOK FM10 30010KT CAVOK RMK AUTO GENERATED AS2004The second is after I clear all weather in FS9 which is what I would have expected AS2004 to generate if it reports CAVOK and I set cloud layers to zero (as well as disabling CAVOK cloud generation. I'm not too fussed about having the haze while flying over the coast as currently in the real world over SE Australia there is quite a lot smoke haze at times moment with fuel reduction burns in forests. However when it follows you out over the ocean it becomes unrealistic.One final thing what reporting station is YSCM - can't find it anywhere and it is supposed to be about 50 miles from here?Bruce

Cut and paste from another post I made a couple months ago:CAVOK does not mean that there are no clouds. CAVOK is used when visibility is greater than 10km(5.4nm). No clouds below 5000ft, or below the highest minimum sector altitude, whichever is greater, and no Cumulonimbus.This is taken from the metar manual btw.JT

Hi Bruce,Thanks for the screenshots. Damian will need to see those. Your ISP may be the problem. Are you starting FS04 first?YSCM is Cooma.Hope this helps,JimActiveSky Supporthttp://www.hifisim.com/images/as2004proudsupporter.jpg

I am fully across the definition of CAVOK but I can assure you that the real weather when these screeshots were taken was no clouds and in any case I had disabled CAVOK clouds. At other times I have had extensive low level cloud (well below 5000 feet) when the METAR and TAF had CAVOK specified. But in any case having my virtual FS world look exactly like the real world at a particular point in time is less important to me than having virtual weather that behaves like real world weather.Bruce

Hmmm - Cooma - that's in the mountains - may explain why there is some haze - think yourself lucky it isn't snowing.Andy b

Well that's what I thought but when I seek a custom report for YSCM I get a no ID match error. Perhaps it was just part of the corrupted data. If it is Coooma then with a forecast of snow down to 900 meters today it may well be snowing (Cooma is at 800 meters) which would make the weather here at my home town of Merimbula (YMER) on the coast most unusual as it never snows here. When I fly from YMER I usually get Canberra (YSCB)weather and it is at 600 meters and well inland with quite a different climate to Merimbula as well.Bruce