Hi all.Started using ASVE a couple of days ago. I've been playing around a bit and understand most of it but am still a bit unsure how ASVE interacts with FS9 re: depicting weather.Best explained by an example I think :I have local suppression set to 50nm in ASVE and online mode enabled. I have cloud draw distance in FS9 weather display options set to 40nm.Now I take off from local airport (no flight plan loaded in ASVE) say YMEN (Essendon airport, Melbourne, Australia). I get initial weather from ASVE it's fairly realistic I like that (a few clouds in 3 layers)!Q1. ASVE radio 122.00 text strip reports YMEN weather with an RMK AUTOGEN. Is this because YMEN is using YMML (Melbourne Int'l) METAR report ? The ActiveRadar Tracking screen reports my local station as YMEN.Now let's say I fly around Melbourne for a few hours never going more than 30nm away from YMEN/YMML.Q2. Will I ever see any weather changes by doing this ? Say a cold front comes through after a couple of hours or so (which is happening at the moment in real world). Will the local suppression mean that the new weather reports will never be used and hence I won't see the cold front come through ?Q3. I am currently flying as described above and the ActiveRadar reports nearest station is YMEN (23nm). The ASVE radio 122.00 text strip isn't reporting RMK SUPPRESSED (still reporting RMK AUTOGEN as above), even though the wind and cloud information has changed since I've been in the air according to the ActiveRadar Tracking screen (there are now 2 cloud layers reported instead of 3 and heights have changed). I would have expected the suppression to be enforced so obviously I'm not understanding how this works properly.Q4. Can the dynamic weather slider in FS9 be used with ASVE somehow or should it always be set to None ?Q5. Is there any relationship between ASVE local suppression distance and FS9 cloud draw distance that should be used or avoided ? i.e. should local suppression distance always be greater than cloud draw distance, what value(s) are optimal etc ?Thanks for any replies that come my way.Dave

Hi Dave and welcome!1. No, it means that ASV generated the weather. Many possible reasons, but they lead to missing data so ASV generates the data. YMML must be the closest station for YMEN.2. Not realistic but no you would not see the changes unless you were on the ground.3. Not sure about this but the Supressed remark is only if you are under the supression altitude.4. No, it should be set to None.5. Yes supression should be equal or greater than cloud draw distance. CDD depends on your computer and cloud textures. I use 50 Supression and 30 CDD.You have a good handle on things. I can tell you have worked with the manual and the program!Hope this helps,JimActiveSky Sales and Supporthttp://www.hifisim.com/images/asv_dev_team.jpg http://www.hifisim.com/images/asv_proud_supporter.jpg

Thanks for the quick response Jim.Let's say I was flying around my local area and did want to see some change in the weather, despite the local suppression from ASVE being active.Could I set the FS9 dynamic weather slider to other than 'None' anyway and let FS9 make some changes based on the 'suppressed ASVE conditions, or does this cause other problems with ASVE?Also since my last post I've noticed that the ActiveRadar 'Situation' display shows YMEN in the wrong place (about 50nm east of where it should be). This happened after I crashed (plane crash not PC crash !) during the previous flight from YMEN. It was positioned properly up until that time. I've tried re-starting everything, re-booting etc but it hasn't fixed the problem. Also if I go to the planning display in ActiveRadar and manually input YMEN it shows the correct co-ordinates, just the position is wrong in the 'Situation' display.Any known problems which may cause this ?Dave

RE : Last post above re position of YMEN on ActiveRadar Situation display.I found 3 files in the ASVE installation that list airfield co-ordinates :1/ complete_airport_list.txt2/ wx_station_list.txt3/ AirportDB.dat (in the ActiveRadar folder)Although most locations in these files have slight discrepancies, I notice that YMEN is out by a fair bit in the AirportDB.dat file, the values in the 3 files above are :1/ YMEN,-037.731,144.893,2822/ YMEN,-37.73,144.901,85,11.53/ YMEN -37.733334 145.399994 249Could the value of 145.399994 in the airportDB file be the culprit here ?RegardsDave

Hi Dave,I'll combine posts:1. Turn local supression off. However, you may get cloud pop-ups right around your plane.2. It could be if it is in an East-West direction that it is wrong. If you wanted to backup that file and make the change you could.Hope this helps,JimActiveSky Sales and Supporthttp://www.hifisim.com/images/asv_dev_team.jpg http://www.hifisim.com/images/asv_proud_supporter.jpg

Hi Jim, I fixed the DB file now ActiveRadar has YMEN at correct location.Just back on the local suppression thing, from your comments can I assume that ASVE can't smoothly transition the local weather when a new METAR report is downloaded ? - something similar to what FS9 dynamic weather does.i.e. if initial METAR report has 3 cloud layers then a new METAR report has 2 cloud layers, ASVE can't smoothly transition between the 2 conditions over a period of time.If correct, is this a hard-coded limitation of FS9 or a feature still to come in ASVE ?Thanks again for your assistance.Dave

Hi Dave,It's really a data driven limitation. Let's look at a real life example. You are flying and YMEN is the active station and is under CAVOK conditions. ASV updates and the new METAR for YMEN contains FEW. Without any supression FS04 processes the new data, sends FEW clouds, and those FEW clouds suddenly pop up on your screen. "What the heck", you would say, "I thought ASV had smooth weather transitions."So think of the supression zone as a buffer to prevent sudden weather changes due to changes in the active METAR. Hope this helps,JimActiveSky Sales and Supporthttp://www.hifisim.com/images/asv_dev_team.jpg http://www.hifisim.com/images/asv_proud_supporter.jpg

OK thanks Jim I understand now how ASVE works. I just thought ASVE would apply some sort of smoothing to the data it sends to FS9 to gradually change the conditions from CAVOK to FEW over a period of time - similar to FS9 dynamic weather - where I can see clouds form and dissipate gradually. I hope this makes it into a future release if technically possible (hint, hint).So in short, if I want to see most realistic current weather :1/ when I am flying a local area only, better to use FS9 real world weather with dynamic slider.2/ when I am flying legs, better to use ASVECorrect ?Dave

Hi Dave,I would still suggest ASVE for local flights. But part is because I think our FS04 experiences are different. You may tend to fly in areas where stations are far apart and you don't think you are seeing the weather change. Do I have this right or am I off the mark?!!Hope this helps,JimActiveSky Sales and Supporthttp://www.hifisim.com/images/asv_dev_team.jpg http://www.hifisim.com/images/asv_proud_supporter.jpg

Yep Jim I reckon you're right.I think there is only the 1 consistently reporting station in Melbourne suburban area(YMML Melbourne Int'l). The other main GA airports in the area (YM**) seem to have exactly the same METAR report inside of FS9 as YMML most of the time.For example below is an extract from my current 'current_wx_snapshot.txt' file in the ASV folder. I'm assuming this is the data downloaded from the internet. This is typical example, it looks to me like the only recent report is from YMML and YMHB. I suspect that the '*::*' on most of the others means no report available or something.YMAY::*::*::335,015,16.1/330,018,07.4/324,019,03.7/325,029,-06.0/335,030,-21.3/345,037,-33.8/329,031,-41.5/299,019,-42.0/291,011,-45.0YMDV::*::*::050,027,15.3/033,017,10.0/037,020,06.4/051,034,-05.6/049,030,-19.0/043,037,-32.3/033,047,-45.5/037,033,-45.7/017,009,-46.3YMEN::*::*::347,011,13.9/341,013,05.8/331,014,03.0/342,017,-07.7/348,017,-22.6/002,020,-34.6/331,013,-37.5/260,008,-39.7/249,004,-43.5YMES::*::*::347,015,17.9/349,019,08.6/353,021,03.8/348,033,-06.5/010,040,-21.0/018,048,-32.8/012,037,-42.1/002,028,-41.9/004,006,-44.8YMHB::YMHB 240900Z 14007KT 9999 FEW005 SCT074 BKN097 17/15 Q1006::YMHB 240604Z 240820 05010KT 9999 SCT020 FM11 VRB03KT 9999 -SHRA SCT012 BKN022::093,009,19.4/025,014,11.5/013,011,08.2/041,020,-04.1/036,027,-17.6/019,033,-30.3/008,075,-45.3/010,057,-51.2/004,022,-52.1YMLT::YMLT 240800Z AUTO 14003KT 9999NDV // BKN088 BKN100 18/13 Q1005::*::041,009,18.8/042,020,10.8/045,017,07.5/050,023,-05.2/043,032,-18.2/025,042,-31.3/019,074,-45.8/021,049,-49.0/012,018,-48.9YMLV::*::*::347,011,13.9/341,013,05.8/331,014,03.0/342,017,-07.7/348,017,-22.6/002,020,-34.6/331,013,-37.5/260,008,-39.7/249,004,-43.5YMMB::*::*::347,011,13.9/341,013,05.8/331,014,03.0/342,017,-07.7/348,017,-22.6/002,020,-34.6/331,013,-37.5/260,008,-39.7/249,004,-43.5YMMG::*::*::220,016,11.9/223,013,06.1/220,014,02.8/194,017,-06.6/184,032,-19.5/192,039,-30.5/207,066,-38.4/205,058,-42.5/209,036,-46.1YMMI::*::*::285,019,29.8/291,025,19.5/296,026,14.6/306,054,04.4/298,061,-05.9/288,074,-17.8/287,089,-32.4/283,090,-41.0/279,094,-54.2YMML::YMML 240900Z 34007KT CAVOK 17/10 Q1003 INTER 1030/1200 5000 SHRA SCT015::YMML 240840Z 240906 36018KT 9999 -SHRA FEW020 BKN035 FM14 36012KT 9999 FEW015 SCT030 INTER 1114 5000 SHRA SCT015::347,011,13.9/341,013,05.8/331,014,03.0/342,017,-07.7/348,017,-22.6/002,020,-34.6/331,013,-37.5/260,008,-39.7/249,004,-43.5YMMQ::*::*::277,026,04.9/270,032,03.3/268,032,02.1/268,035,-05.0/262,039,-19.2/250,039,-32.2/236,054,-48.9/239,062,-58.8/243,070,-65.4YMWY::*::*::050,027,15.3/033,017,10.0/037,020,06.4/051,034,-05.6/049,030,-19.0/043,037,-32.3/033,047,-45.5/037,033,-45.7/017,009,-46.3So if I have this right, ASVE will put YMML weather at all the other stations as well, which explains why I don't see any change ?Hope you don't get the impression I don't like ASVE - I love it - I just like to try and understand the meat behind these type of programs so I can get the most out of them.I'll make a few flights around high-density US / Europe areas and see what a difference it makes.Thanks againDave

Suppression question...If flying in offline mode does it matter what these are set to?Thanks!

Hi Dave,No, I can tell you are enjoying ASVE. Your questions are good and you are polite, and to us that is what matters most.You are right about the *::* Usually it happens when a station is closed or does not transmit data.If YMML is the closest station that is what will be reported. At other times ASVE will generate conditions based on surrounding stations. Watch the ASVE METAR window for the RMK: AUTOGEN ASV. That means ASV has generated the weather.Part of this too is the fact that the whole area of the globe has proven to be quite a challange for us. Weather stations can be very far apart, they report data every so often, and some close at night. So we have added as many stations as possible so that the "data holes" get filled in. Then from other users we hear that real life weather can be generally the same for large distances. So we are dealing with that!Yes, when you get a chance do visit some other areas and see what you find!Hope this helps,JimActiveSky Sales and Supporthttp://www.hifisim.com/images/asv_dev_team.jpg http://www.hifisim.com/images/asv_proud_supporter.jpg