Crestline Soaring Society

The replacement anemometer has been reporting non-zero winds speeds for a couple of days now, so I guess we can start relying on the data again. The old anemometer will be sent in for counseling and possibly to a reeducation camp to instill that 24/7 work ethic. I put a weatherproof junction box on the tower, so now we can just go with the stock (cheaper) 40-foot cable length when next we need to order a replacement anemo/vane. They seem to last about two years up at Crestline.

I met the Airsites tower owner, Bill Cody, this morning at Crestline launch and installed the replacement temperature/humidity sensor for Simba, so we now have temperature data in our wind graph again. Rebar Dan went up the other tower and cleaned the clear dome on the PTZ cam, so the views are clearer now. Airsites had a new dish installed on the tower with the cams and anemometers, and the Windtalker anemometer was sort of in the wind shadow (for SW) of the new dish, so I raised that up a foot or so to be in the clear.

Simba is hooked up to the weather station and the internet, so the weather graph and table are working again!

Bill Cody, the tower owner, made a special trip out to Crestline (2 hour drive for him) today so I could get in the building and put the computer back into the system. A couple of days ago I found that the internet settings had inadvertently gotten screwed up while the box was in for service, which was why it wouldn't connect with the LAN. Discovering and fixing this problem required connecting to Simba via a serial terminal, which I'd not had to do previously.

The CSS MarshallCam is back online! I got the DSL settings at the new tower location sorted out and the camera started posting automatically, as it's supposed to. I can't get a response from the Simba weather computer from outside the locked building so there's no weather data as yet. Perhaps that problem is something as simple as a bad ethernet cable.

4/11/10: UpdateIt turns out the little computer, Simba, that connects to the weather station isn't connecting to the LAN. This is what they 'repaired' in December, at no charge. I'd gladly pay actual money to have an actual repair! I hadn't tried it before now because the weather station equipment was down.

Spent the day installing the CSS weather station, webcam, and windtalker at the antenna towers next to Crestline launch. Best location for them yet - no obstructions or terrain issues of any kind in any direction. The windtalker no longer requires 'interpretation' - what she says is what it is. (909)-338-3362 for the wind report.

The DSL line wasn't connecting to the internet, but the weather station and webcam are ready to go when the phone company sorts that out. Dan's aimable PTZ camera is up there and will also be available soon. The static webcam now looks southeast, to see Marshall Peak, so we won't see what's coming from L.A. with it (like the smog front) but Dan's cam will handle that, plus views of Crestline launch and more.

I have not deleted any posts or comments from the forum in quite some time. A forum user thinks some content has been removed. The site logs for the last couple of days don't show any deletions, but there's been so much activity that they only go back a couple of days at this point. {UPDATE: I've just increased the log retention}

[b]Normal procedure is for those with deletion rights (i.e. the CSS Board) to discuss it with other board members before deleting anything. We've only deleted a couple of items in the last four years.

So, the Simba weather station went off line a couple of Sundays ago and a simple reboot didn't get it back online. On inspection I found that the weather equipment was fine and that the mini computer between it and the internet wasn't connecting to the LAN via ethernet. The only way to communicate with the device is via the LAN, so I had to send it in for service. This is the machine we repaired this summer by replacing the motherboard, keeping the RAM and the Flash memory with the OS and programs already on them, to the tune of $300. I expect the manufacturer to cover the failure under warranty.

I got a new rotor and cups assembly for the weather station anemometer and installed them today. Last night I epoxied the cups into the snap-in brackets on the rotor. The cup I super-glued back on to the old rotor a couple of weeks ago held but one of the others came out in the last high wind event. I had put drops of super-glue on the other cup brackets, but not in the junctions.

7/21/09 UPDATE:

The manufacturer replaced the motherboard and re-used the Operating System chip (no longer available) and the Flash memory from the old unit, so all settings were preserved. It was literally plug-and-play! The webcam time lapse images are also functional once again - they stopped working because the scripts that manage them depend on the weather data.

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ALL MEMBERSHIPS EXPIRED 5/31/09 - if you did not get a renewal notice in the mail please go to CSS Application & Waiver, print and complete the forms, and mail them in with your dues.

See: Meeting announcement in the Events section.

Location Changed - The morning church service will now be at a different facility, near the originally announced location. See the link below.

We have decided, with Juanita Jackson's blessing, to honor Rob Kells at this year's Andy Jackson Memorial Fly-In, Saturday September 6, 2008. Trish Kells has planned a church service for Rob that morning and all are invited to attend the church service or come to the fly-in, or both. Please see the announcement on the Wills Wing website for details.

The proximate cause of the webserver overload seems to have been some kind of fruitless but resource hogging spam bot attack, which I think we've dealt with. A couple of other minor issues, which have been dealt with by the webhost, may have been contributing factors.

I know everyone's post-fly-in enthusiasm may have waned a bit by now, but it would be great to have reports and pictures of that great event.

Our website, along with thousands of others, went down Saturday afternoon and was not restored for close to 36 hours. The problem was an electrical explosion at the data center in Houston where the server is located; the fire department there ordered that the backup generators could not be turned on, due to the nature of the damage.

The servers were not damaged and nothing was lost from our website.

Comparing the replacement anemometer/wind vane ($139) with the old one, it is obvious that ice got up inside the old unit (when the mast bent over) and damaged the bearings or whatever. The old vane and cups wiggle around like a hula dancer.

Sorry it took so long to replace.

The folks where the weather station lives changed from cable internet to DSL, and there was a hitch in the transition, so I went up there and found a subnet mask setting to change and got them back on the net.

The power supply to the Ultimeter 2100 weather base unit had gone out, somehow. Made a trip to Radio Shack in Crestline and got a replacement, which got the weather station back up. The anemometer readings still aren't getting to the base station, and it was too damp, cold, and windy to get up on the roof without a spotter.

After voting (With a paper ballot! My candidate might win this time!) I went to the Ball's house to see what I could do for the weather station. They weren't home, so I couldn't get to anything, but looking at the sensor mast I saw that one of the lower mounts had shifted around a bit, making the mast only appear to be bent. One of the anemometer cups is off and David found it on their deck. If the cup can't be snapped back on (they have to be snapped on when the unit is unpacked) I can replace the anemometer/wind vane with the old non-heated one. The heated one freezes up pretty readily, so no big deal.

Our webhost applied some upgrades to the server last night, and our website naturally had a number of problems today. At first, only the weather pages were working, then the site was displaying properly but user logins were broken and the Oz Report Headlines weren't being fetched.

If you run into any odd/new website behaviors, please let me know.

Latest Glitch:
Fixed! Same Day! (1/17)

Set for Saturday, Dec 22nd, 2007 (click for details)