Operational Data Acquisition Frequently Asked Questions

3. Operational

1. I want to set up a UVB-1, MFR, UVMFR, or SPUV site and only download data every few days on my YESDAS-2. Is unattended operation doable? What about the TSI and RSS?

Yes, absolutely. For radiometers such as the UVB-1, MFR-7, UVMFR-7 and SPUV-10, the YESDAS supports automated remote unattended operation. However, depending on the number of instruments, you will likely want to order the PCMCIA-2 memory card option.

For our TSI and RSS instruments, you can expect to collect anywhere from 1 to 32mb of data per day, depending on data rates. Thus a local PC or a 24-hour, 7 day a week Internet connection is good to have. In cases where it is infeasible to have a network connection, the TSI-880's optional DSM-420 data storage module supports 420Mb of removable storage.

2. What do I need to do to make the YESDAS Y2K compliant?

Your YESDAS-2 data logger systems and application software are "year 2000-ready." However, you must also test the PC you run the software on to ensure that it has a BIOS chip that can correctly handles the date change.

If you have now upgraded your original PCs from Windows 3.X and DOS to Windows 9x/NT, you must upgrade your software (DosBand) to at least YESDAS Manager 2.0.

YESDAS-1 system was obsoleted by YESDAS-2 in 1995. We strongly recommend YESDAS-1 users to upgrade to YESDAS-2. Nonetheless, we wrote the DSP-1 software carefully to handle four year dates, and we are not currently aware of any year 2000 issues with the DSP-1 package used in YESDAS-1.

To explain more fully, three factors that need to be checked:

1. The YES application software (YESTALK, DOSBAND, DSP-1, YESDAS Manager for Win9x/NT)

2. The PC's motherboard BIOS that runs the application software

3. The data logger hardware itself (there is a clock inside both the YESDAS-2 and the CR-10 on the YESDAS-1)

More detail:

1. Although your YESDAS-2 data logger system and application software may be "year 2000-ready", you must also test the PC you run the software on to ensure that it has a BIOS chip that can correctly handles the date change. That is, the YESTALK/DOSBAND/YESDAS-Manager (new package for Windows95/NT - see item #2 below) will request the PC to tell it what the time and date are. If the PC's clock or BIOS chip have a Year 2K bug in it, then the software won't know this. Therefore the PC must be year-2000 compliant as well as the software.

So to verify that your PCs have up to date BIOS chips there are several free third-party year-2000 test tools available on the world wide web. A good site is NSTL: browse www.nstl.com to find a program called "Ymark2000." Download this program and run it on all your PCs. If problems are detected, you will need to replace any BIOS or motherboards of PCs that have clock or BIOS problems.

2. If you have now upgraded your original PCs from Windows 3.X and DOS to Windows 95, you must upgrade your software (DosBand) to YESDAS Manager 2.0. Also note that while YESDAS Manager supports all YESDAS-2 systems, it does not support older YESDAS-1 hardware.

3. YESDAS-1 systems were made obsolete by YESDAS-2 nearly four years ago. However, we wrote the DSP-1 software carefully to properly handle four year dates and we are not currently aware of any year 2000 issues with the DSP-1 software package. However, since YES did not design the CR-10, we cannot guarantee that the CSI CR-10 does not have a year-2000 problem. While we are fairly sure the CR-10 + DSP-1 package does not have any year-2000 issues, we recommend that YESDAS-1 owners upgrade older YESDAS-1 systems to YESDAS-2 sometime before January, 2000. Finally, you also need to check the BIOS in the PC' s that you run the DSP-1 software on. In general most Year-2000 problems are on older PC BIOS's. A simple way around is to reset the PC's date manually on the morning of Jan 1, 2000.

3. What is the advantage of the YESDAS-2 PCMCIA memory card option?

The PCMCIA memory card option actually provides three key enhancements for the YESDAS-2:

1. It greatly expands the system memory (either 1 or 2 Mb) , providing you with 1-2 months of capacity assuming a sampling rate of 1 set per minute. This permits you to take non-averaged data (which you can average together later on your local computer).

2. It has its own battery backup that protects your data, even during a prolonged system shutdown.

3. Since it is a PCMCIA type-I card, it permits hot-swapping during operation. An untrained user can swap the card with an empty one to permit you to retrieve data from remote systems that are not on phone lines.