Infometar problems

[Guest]

I dl with infometar and set up according to instructions, look up the file in weather, find it but the sky does not change a bit. Here in Iceland the weather is playing wild at them moment but what would I be doing wrong that it does not simulate in FLY:Regard

[Leen3131cs 107]

Hi ArniNear wich airport do you live in Iceland.When I know I can give it a try tonight.

[Guest DSandberg]

What version of Fly! are you using, and at which Iceland airport are you checking the weather?I note that NOAA's METAR coverage in Iceland is sparse enough that there are some airports with no reporting METAR station within perhaps 80 miles or so. If you are thinning your METARs and have too low of a "Buffer space" setting in the "Select METAR Thinning Settings" dialog, you could inadvertently cull out all of the METARs in the area. I'd keep the buffer space set to a minimum of 300 miles for sparse coverage areas such as this.Also I should mention that, while checking back through my catalog of downloaded METAR cycles, I see that occasionally there are no METAR reports whatsoever for Iceland in the NOAA METARs. Usually there are a few, but it's possible that you hit one of those bad times, so trying again might result in it working better. Or did you actually check the Iceland METARs on InfoMETAR's map after downloading them?- David Sandberg

[Guest]

I am using BIRK, Reykjavik, thank you Regard

[Guest]

Good point David, I was actually trying Infometar the first time and there is nothing showing up on the map after dl. No metar report from the source is the answer! - sorry, I should have noticed this myself.Regard

[Guest DSandberg]

Arni,Since you are new to InfoMETAR, here are a few suggestions: if you have a fast Internet connection, always select the "Merged" option in the METAR Download dialog. Or, if your connection is too slow for that, go with the "Most recently completed set" option. (I.e., avoid the "very latest METARs" option unless you have a specific reason for using it.) Finally, make sure your computer's time and timezone settings are accurate, because if either one are very far off it can cause InfoMETAR to miscalculate the Zulu hour, hence download the wrong METAR cycle, and then reject all of the reports as too old ... a situation that could also lead to the "no reports" situation you described.Let me know how it goes ... good luck!- David Sandberg[br][br]

[Guest]

David you got me on this one, "computer's time and timezone settings"can you explain what you mean by timezone and were would I configure that.This is the metar report for BIEG from were I am currently trying to test. 2002/11/21 01:00BIEG 210100Z 29004KT 9999 SCT025 BKN035 BKN050 05/// Q0996so as you can see I should have cloud formation, sky is however still clear. This is a puzzle, pls let me know if you come up with an idea.PS weather is now showing up on the map in infometar.Regard

[Guest DSandberg]

If the weather is showing up on the map in InfoMETAR after an automatic download, then your computer's time and timezone is probably correct, so we shouldn't need to bother with that.You still didn't mention if you are using Fly! 1.0, Fly2K or Fly II. It makes a big difference when it comes to the weather handling. I guess I'll assume you are using Fly II unless you tell me differently.You are loading the file using the Load Metar dialog in Fly, right?The only other idea I have right now is to make sure you are starting Fly!, loading the METAR file, and then flying. Don't do any manual weather editing before or after loading the METAR file, as that can screw up or overwrite parts of the loaded METARs.- David Sandberg[br][br]

[Guest]

Hi, I am using Fly 2 us release. Now, I have no idea of the difference between Fly2K or Fly II ! I always thought there was only FLY and FLYII were FLY2K and FLYII was the same for me only people using different phrases for the same thing. But it

[Guest DSandberg]

>Hi, I am using Fly 2 us release. Now, I have no idea of the >difference between Fly2K or Fly II ! I always thought there >was only FLY and FLYII were FLY2K and FLYII was the same for >me only people using different phrases for the same thing. >But it

[Guest]

Speaking of which, here's another one: are you making a "thinned" file with InfoMETAR, and if so are you defining your flight route as passing over Iceland? A flight path somewhere else would obviously not include the Iceland METARs. See, I told you it was going to be another stupid question. I'm grasping at straws here.Now, to be honest I ignored the flight route, the habbit from MSFS just having to dl the weather! In regard of "thinned" layer, YES.Gonna take time for this this eve again and see what I will accomplish, honestly I believe I am overseeing something that anyone else would spot immitiately in front of my pc, that would be typical for me:)Regard

[Leen3131cs 107]

Hi to all,I use Infomatar with FLY2 and I must say that the results withInfometar in FLY2 are of less quality would like to have.This morning Idid some experiments.Dowloaded with Infometar ,without doing anything to create more or less weathereffects.I did not use thinning.After downloading I looked in the txt-file and searched for an airportwit bad weather.I found heavy rain at EGUW.Started FLY2 went to EGUW with the flightplanner.Then I imported the metarfile.The weather changed indeed , and the clouds were genuine rain-clouds.BUT there was NO RAIN , not even one drop , flying around the airport.Wind and wind-direction were not the same as in the txt file.After that I reloaded the txt file in Infometar and made the adjustments to make as much as rain as possoble ,as much clouds as possible ect.Several times with different settings.I saved this files under another name of course.This metar.txt files imported in FLY2 did not change things.After this a compared the txt files and discoverd they werefor the EGUW airport exactly the same.The manipulated versions should be axaggerating but they did`nt.?????????????Regards

[Guest DSandberg]

> After this a compared the txt files and discoverd they were> for the EGUW airport exactly the same.> The manipulated versions should be axaggerating but they did`nt.No, they shouldn't have been exaggerated in the latter case (if you don't buy that, post the actual METAR contents and I'll explain it to you in detail).I think you are misunderstanding what InfoMETAR does. When you say you "made the adjustments to make as much rain as possible", I assume that you mean you set the "Station Selection Order" (in the Thinning Settings dialog) to the "By weather intensity" setting? (I assume so, since the only other ways to alter weather intensity in InfoMETAR are only used when generating random weather.) If so, all the "By weather intensity" option does is favor including METARs that have more rain/clouds/wind/etc during the thinning process. This option doesn't alter the actual content of any individual METAR report. In fact InfoMETAR never makes such changes, except for those few modifications (applied during file save) that are meant to correct some misbehaviors in the original Fly!. In particular it never materially alters a real world METAR to take it away from real world conditions, outside of those few cases necessitated by some limitations of Fly!. I made that choice in order to preserve the integrity of the real world METARs as much as possible.This is the big problem I've found with writing a utility like InfoMETAR (in fact, consider this a warning to anyone thinking of writing a similar utility). At one end of the process there's the NOAA server, which is both unpredictable and unreliable. And the other end Fly (in particular Fly II) has more than its fair share of problems in rendering METAR weather. InfoMETAR sits in the middle of the process, between these two ends, and does not alter either end ... it simply attempts to negotiate the best possible path from one to the other. But anytime there's a problem anywhere in the process, including at either end, people (and one reviewer in particular) seem to always assume "InfoMETAR problems" (perhaps because of the "freeware" label, as opposed to the more "professional" veneer of the other elements involved).- David Sandberg[br][br]

[Guest DSandberg]

If you ignored the flight route entirely you should still get the Iceland METARs (InfoMETAR produces a thinned set for the entire globe in that case).Understand that I can't rule out that Fly II simply isn't loading the weather correctly. The patch currently available has lots of problems with METAR weather. If you can post the lines for the Iceland METAR stations (probably BIKF, BIRK, BIAR and BIEG) from the file InfoMETAR created, we can at least verify what weather conditions InfoMETAR is telling Fly! to create. What Fly! does with it at that point is unfortunately out of my control. :(By the way, don't even bother trying to get new METARs to try right now. NOAA's server is screwed up again at the moment (I just tried several times).:-8- David Sandberg

[Guest]

Hi David, here are the requested metar info.2002/11/21 01:00BIAR 210100Z 19005KT CAVOK M00/M01 Q09952002/11/21 01:00BIEG 210100Z 29004KT 9999 SCT025 BKN035 BKN050 05/// Q09962002/11/21 01:30BIKF 210130Z 07007KT 9999 FEW024 BKN028 BKN035 04/03 Q09902002/11/21 01:00BIRK 210100Z 10010KT CAVOK 04/01 Q0990My question is though, do you know of others dealing with the same problem ? - Could the fly.ini file be uncorrectly configured at my end, if this is a change, can you mail yours if you are running the same version of Fly as I - the us realese as said before.my mail is - arnistefan@islandia.isRegard