VoxATC and dynamic weather (FSGRW, Opus, ASN)?

[vonmar 123]

Information for the developer. Activesky Next can give you weather for the your arrival airport at anytime during your flight, even changes. This is how the PMDG 777 get's it's weather information. All it would take is for VoxATC to read the weather file before TOD and then set this.

 

Some pilots do not have ActiveSky.

 

My thought was to get weather from an internet source .. the same one that all the flight sim weather programs use.

[armchair_pilot 54]

Some pilots do not have ActiveSky.

 

My thought was to get weather from an internet source .. the same one that all the flight sim weather programs use.

 

How about you can select from what source you would like VOX to pull the weather from? Like PFPX does, you can select online, ASN, REX... I'm 100% sure this is possible.

[vonmar 123]

How about you can select from what source you would like VOX to pull the weather from? Like PFPX does, you can select online, ASN, REX... I'm 100% sure this is possible.

 

What's wrong with getting all weather from one source ... where PFPX, ASN, REX... and others get their weather from?

I'm 100% sure this is possible, also.

[voodoo101 21]

Most new programs, ie: PFPX and Aivlasoft EFB allow you to select the weather source you are using, whether it be REX, Activesky, realworld or whatever. In PFPX, if you select real world then you have to have a subscription, the others then they pull from the file they have downloaded. Activesky and Rex do not connect to a general server, they connect to their own servers, so Activesky will connect to HiFi simulations server. So VoxATC could not get the weather direct off the internet, there is no guarantee that the weather from one source is the same as the other.

 

Now PFPX and EFB do not read the weather once it has loaded for the first time so this would not be any use to read

the weather from.

 

As far as I know, Activesky Next is the only weather engine that gets the weather for the whole world so can predict the weather further afield, even as far as your destination weather. This is born out by the PMDG 777 that can read the descent weather before takeoff and then anytime through the flight.

 

PMDG took the choice to work with HiFi simulations and then the other weather engine developers added the facilities to match.

 

If Vox wants to progress then this will be the only weather engine that it can do it with at the moment.

[Jarkko 59]

Oh my, what have I done Let me try to give you the facts:

 

The following programs (to name a few) use NOAA as their weather source for weather for the whole world:

 

- ASN, AS2012, ASE, ...

- Opus

- REX

- FSGRW (FS Global Real Weather)

 

At least ActiveSky, REX and FSGRW load this data onto their own server for before making it available to you. Why? Good question! Here are a couple of reasons:

 

Reason #1: Historical weather. IIRC NOAA doesn't have a long history of METARs/winds aloft/TAFs. It's about 2 months or so (please correct me if I'm wrong). In order for weather engines to provide historic weather past this time period, they have to store the data on their own server.

 

Reason #2: Interpolation and FS friendly weather. The data from NOAA isn't FSX friendly. AFAIK (when airborne) FSX use triangulation to decide the current weather in your current position. To get the weather more FSX friendly the weather programs can enhance the NOAA data, by adding "fake" weather stations. This is called interpolation in ActiveSky. I don't remember what the other weather engines call this process.

 

The main idea is to "fill in" empty areas so that during triangulation, FSX doesn't get weather from two stations that are (for example) 20nm away and from one that is 500nm away. You can imagine how different the weather can be between these point if no "fake" stations are added to help the triangulation process.

 

Reason #3: Less traffic on NOAA site. When you have all the simmers around the world requesting the current weather every 5 minutes (or so). It's good that they do not cause traffic to NOAA's site. If traffic goes to high, NOAA might no longer provide the global weather info as a free service.

 

---

 

So for ASN, REX, FSGRW the process of weather fetching looks like this:

 

NOAA server -> Weather engine's own server -> Your computer's weather engine -> to a file on your computer's drive (this step is optional).

 

No sure, but I think that Opus get's the weather directly from NOAA to a file to your computer and then does all interpolation and weather smoothing on your machine (might be wrong though).

 

---

Activesky Next is the only weather engine that gets the weather for the whole world so can predict the weather further afield, even as far as your destination weather

The following weather engines can provide weather uplink data for the PMDG 777:

 

- ASN

- FSGRW

- Opus

- (not sure if REX has this already implemented)

 

The main point, the PMDG 777 weather data isn't ASN exclusive feature. Even the 777 weather radar "works" with all weather engines (even the default one) in case you have installed ASN on your system at any given time. All is required is a DLL that only ASN supplies. After that, the 777 weather radar works with most weather engines.

 

Even I can create you a program for the PMDG's 777 data uplink from the NOAA data. FWIW the programs I have made, use NOAA as a weather source and the results match exactly with ASN, FSGRW, REX and Opus.

 

---

 

Last but not least. VoxATC reading weather data from NOAA/ASN/FSGRW/Opus/REX/name your product:

 

I received a reply from the VoxATC developer about this feature and it was something like this: "Might consider it in the future, but currently the isn't enough time available to work on this feature".

 

----

 

One last thing:

Now PFPX and EFB do not read the weather once it has loaded for the first time so this would not be any use to read

the weather from.

PFPX and EFB do load the weather in the background without letting you know. You can even force a weather update at any time you so desire.

 

Cheers,

 

Jarkko

Edited August 12, 2014 by Jarkko

[vonmar 123]

Jarkko,

 

"The following programs (to name a few) use NOAA as their weather source for weather for the whole world:"

 

Sounds good to me .. one internet source for all weather.

 

****

"I received a reply from the VoxATC developer about this feature and it was something like this: "Might consider it in the future, but currently the isn't enough time available to work on this feature"."

 

Had I known that prior to purchasing VOXatc I would have waited for VOXatc development to be completed as destination weather (correct arrival ATIS, STARS and  assigned approaches) is very important for a high quality ATC program..

[WolfgangT 0]

looking in the www to get last information about VOXATC, cause I planned to to buy it  - but after reading this I better save my money - thanks for the info!

[Jarkko 59]

looking in the www to get last information about VOXATC, cause I planned to to buy it  - but after reading this I better save my money - thanks for the info!

 

Even with this problem. VOX Atc is still the best offline ATC available (currently).

[RotorWash 1]

Even with this problem. VOX Atc is still the best offline ATC available (currently).

Agree, though this is becoming an immersion killer for me. The disable/re-enable workaround, only works intermittently. I have tried before TOD, after TOD, 100 knm from destination, 80 knm from destination, etc etc, with limited success. The dev needs to address this urgently as it's the only serious flaw with Vox at the moment. Looks like its back to vatsim for me, for the time being, besides the lack of controllers, at least the weather is right at destination. Weather, ATC, and a good flight model are my fundamentals for flight simming, the bling is a secondary bonus. Hope this is addresed soon ?

[BimmerCop 332]

Even with this problem. VOX Atc is still the best offline ATC available (currently).

I concur and I can say that this issue has been fixed in the latest beta version. I have done numerous flights and VoxATC has the latest arrival weather, thus giving you the correct runway for the current winds, at the time of arrival. It has been working great with ASN. No need to disable/enable to reset VoxATC. It will always have the correct weather.

 

PS. And it's working without having to read a weather file or setting a path to such file. Once you are close to your destination, the correct weather is being loaded into VoxATC.

[wanabflyer 53]

I concur and I can say that this issue has been fixed in the latest beta version. I have done numerous flights and VoxATC has the latest arrival weather, thus giving you the correct runway for the current winds, at the time of arrival. It has been working great with ASN. No need to disable/enable to reset VoxATC. It will always have the correct weather.

PS. And it's working without having to read a weather file or setting a path to such file. Once you are close to your destination, the correct weather is being loaded into VoxATC.

This is good news indeed. Any idea when it gets released as an update?

[BimmerCop 332]

This is good news indeed. Any idea when it gets released as an update?

 

No idea yet, sorry.

[DrumsArt 270]

I concur and I can say that this issue has been fixed in the latest beta version. I have done numerous flights and VoxATC has the latest arrival weather, thus giving you the correct runway for the current winds, at the time of arrival. It has been working great with ASN. No need to disable/enable to reset VoxATC. It will always have the correct weather.

 

PS. And it's working without having to read a weather file or setting a path to such file. Once you are close to your destination, the correct weather is being loaded into VoxATC.

Great news Thank you

 

Regards,

 

Richard Portier

[mwilk 1,106]

AviatorBimmer,

                               With the new beta, have you noticed any difference with how AI traffic is handled? There have been some complaints that the latest version has little traffic movement at large airports.

[RotorWash 1]

I concur and I can say that this issue has been fixed in the latest beta version. I have done numerous flights and VoxATC has the latest arrival weather, thus giving you the correct runway for the current winds, at the time of arrival. It has been working great with ASN. No need to disable/enable to reset VoxATC. It will always have the correct weather.

PS. And it's working without having to read a weather file or setting a path to such file. Once you are close to your destination, the correct weather is being loaded into VoxATC.

Truly great news, Voxatc and ASN are my premium addons. Congratulations in advance to Tegwyn, for what is shaping up to be one of flight sims greatest addons.