Davis | News


		Davis Instruments Weather Club March 1999. ====== Here's a quick preview of this month's contents: ====== Davis re-addresses Y2K... Tips on resetting your station time to Daylight Saving Time... A Monitor II perches precariously atop a Patagonian glacier... And an update on our call for photos... Enjoy! ====== Davis: Re-addressing Y2K ====== Watch out! Davis e-news is going into syndication! We first ran this article on Y2K compliance last August. Our club has tripled in size since then, however, and we're getting lots of requests for the latest and greatest on our Y2K status. So, here again for what we hope is a final pre-millenium appearance, is the Y2K lowdown... Year 2000: Will things work? The short answer is yes! All Davis Weather Stations and the latest versions of the WeatherLink software have been designed to work in the year 2000 and beyond. Monitor, Wizard, and Perception stations do not store the year and GroWeather, Energy, and Health stations calculate years using all four digits--thus, all Davis stations are immune. Products under the Digitar name will also work properly (with the exception of the 7710 Computer Weather Station PCW and the 7712 Expanded Software PCWPRO-2, which have been discontinued). WeatherLink for PC versions 3.0 and above, and WeatherLink for Mac version 1.2, have been designed and tested to work in the year 2000 and beyond. The software uses a windowing technique based on the number 75, which will ensure that the software will function normally up to the year 2075. Earlier versions of the PC and Mac software are not Y2K-compliant. One small glitch! The year 2000 is a leap year. Monitor, Wizard, and Perception station owners will find that February 29 will show up as March 1 on the weather station consoles, just as it did in 1992 and 1996. The date can be corrected on the console (see below to find out how!) or through the WeatherLink software. The GroWeather, Energy, and Health stations do not have this problem. For more information on Y2K compliance, please email our tech support team (support@davisnet.com). Onward to 2000! 284 days left and counting... ====== How To: Reset your station time in time for Daylight Saving's ====== When the time comes to set your clocks forward or back, it is important not to forget about your weather data. The software logs data by the date and time received, and the console logs highs and lows. What do you do? As soon after the time change as possible, you should change your weather station time via the WeatherLink software. Using the WeatherLink to set both the software and the console simultaneously is always better than setting them separately. On April 4th at 2:00am the time will leap ahead one hour in the US. You can either stay up until 2am for the thrill of the most accurate logs, or change it the night before or the morning after. Download your current data and then change the time. To change the time from within the WeatherLink software, enter the Setup menu and choose Set Time. The window that appears will allow you to change the time on your PC and weather station. When asked whether to clear your archive, choose "Yes." After making this change, your database will have a gap equal to one hour plus your archive interval. This is simply a byproduct of the time change and cannot be helped. Need to set the time and date manually, without WeatherLink? No problem. Simply use the Time and Enter keys on your display console. For starters, press the Time key until either the time or date appears. Choose the one you want to change and then use the Enter key as described below. The Enter key has two functions: it moves the cursor (or flashing digit) over to the next space and, if you hold it down, increments the digit selected. So....repeatedly push and release the Enter key to change places and then, when you've come to the digit you wish to change, don't release the Enter key! The digit you've selected will begin to count upwards; when it arrives at the number you want, just release the Enter key. Good luck springing forward! ===== Cool Applications: Perching above a Patagonian Glacier ===== As most of you know by now, we love it when our stations travel to far off lands or engage in groundbreaking research. Out of the blue, Keri Pashuk wrote in to tell us of a station doing both in the Patagonian Canals of South America. What follows is the story she told us, pieced together from several different emails and one amazing phone call... >We learned about the Davis Weather Stations firsthand, when we were down in the Patagonian Canals last April. We had kayaked in to Seno Exmouth to meet up with our friend, Charlie Porter who was there aboard his sailing vessel, Gondwana. Charlie was collecting glacial data from the longest and fastest moving glacier in South America, Pia XI (pronounced PEEA OWNSAY). >Greg [Landreth] & I were Charlie's pack horses (Greg more than I) and we transported all the necessary steam drills and weather equipment up to 3500', just below the icecap. We were camped out on a rocky ridge about 100' down from the Davis weather station. That night, our tents were almost blown off the ridge. With the wind not succeeding in extracting us from our precarious perch, the rain had a go and tried to flood us off the mountain. The next morning, after the wind calmed enough to climb the 100' to the weather station, we discovered that the winds exceeded 70 knots (80 mph) the night before! After being encouraged back to sea level by the weather, we followed Charlie to the end of Seno Exmouth where a finger of Pia XI was cascading and advancing into the mouth of the fjord. We had to hike in through mud-flooded forests and wade through gelid glacial waters, which were rushing past at depths to thigh height. >This glacier was discovered to be advancing. You could almost see it move. Standing next to the push moraine, where trees were being bulldozed over, rocks tumbled forward apparently for no reason other than the glacier's advancement. The glacier in its present location is not shown on any of the maps or charts for the area. Charlie's discovery entitled him to name the glacier "Dacrydium Glacier" after a miniature tree that graces the surrounding slopes. Thanks, Keri, for taking us along on your adventure! . For more info about glaciers and glaciology, check out http://www.glacier.rice.edu/land/5_tableofcontents.html. For a brief guide to Patagonia, you can also check out http://www.gorp.com/gorp/location/latamer/patagoni.htm or http://www.chilesat.net/sernatur/pagina1.htm. Some would think the Patagonian trip the adventure of a lifetime, but as we get to know Keri Pashuk and Greg Landreth better, we're realizing it's only the tip of the iceberg.... In June, Keri and Greg (and their yacht, the Northanger,) are joining a Norwegian-Canadian expedition to retrace the route of Explorer Otto Sverdup through the northernmost reaches of the planet. The mission is to commemorate the voyage of the famous explorer 100 years to the day after his actual launch, and to invite school children from Norway and Canada (as well as other countries) to participate in the exploration via the Internet and other technologies. During this yearlong expedition, the crew, accompanied by a newly minted Weather Monitor II, will take advantage of the opportunity to study arctic environmental and climactic change issues. For more information on this phenomenal journey and the fantastic team that's put it all together, check out the expedition site at http://www.sverdrup2000.org. If you're interested in getting a Norwegian or Canadian school involved, or if you're interested in helping to sponsor the trip, you can find more information there as well. On top of this, Keri says that Learning Outfitters (http://adventureonline.com) will be coming aboard in April or May to follow the progress of the voyage and create educational lessons and studies available to schools around the world. You can be sure that we'll be keeping our browsers tuned in here at Davis! ===== Miscellany of the Moment: An update on Photos ===== Last month we invited you to send in a photo of yourself and your station. We received a number of incredible photos and are deciding which ones to use in our upcoming catalog. Thank you to all the members who took the time to e-mail or snail mail pictures. We love seeing the folks who use our stations and the awesome ways they think of using them. We'd like to continue getting pictures of our customers with their weather stations to use in our PR program. If we end up using the photo on the web or in one of our publications, we'll send you a $100 gift certificate for Davis products. If we use your story and not the photo, we will send you a $50 gift certificate. Either way, you win! So it's not too late to participate! Please send your pictures - along with your name, address, phone number, email address and a short description of who you are and how you're using the station to news@davisnet.com. Or, if you like, you can snail mail the photo(s) to: Susan Foxall Marketing Manager Davis Instruments 3465 Diablo Ave. Hayward, CA 94545-2778 (USA) We'll be sure to contact you before using your photo. We look forward to hearing from you! ====== That's it for March's E-news! See you next month!To subscribe to this e-newsletter go to: http://davisnet.com/news/e_club_signup.asp