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Chris, The decoders require that the data bulletins be identified by defined control character sequences in order to ensure that a complete bulletin is obtained, eg: $GEMPAK/source/bridge/dc/dcgbul.c When you look at a metar transmitted on the IDD, you will find that a bulletin has the format such as: ^A^M^M 616 ^M^M SPCN51 CWAO 010013^M^M SPECI CZCP 010013Z AUTO 07015KT 9SM M32/ A2981=^M^M ^M^M ^C The characters that dcgbul.c uses to identify the start of the product are "SOH" "\r" "\r" "\n". (Above ^A is SOH , ^M is \r). The end of the bulletin is signified by "\r" "\r" "\n" "ETX". (ETX ascii 003, eg ^C). Steve CHiswell unidata User Support >From: "Allen Christopher L" <address@hidden> >Organization: UCAR/Unidata >Keywords: 200202142022.g1EKMDx10457 >To anyone who may know the answer, > >I have been recently trying to take data from civilian piers and format them >to Metar data so that i can use them in Gempak with the DCHRLY or DCMETR >command. The problem is, is that when i try and use some of my created >METAR's in the DCHRLY program it doesn't read anything, yet when i do the >same operation on METAR reports i have downloaded from the nws, they work. >These METAR's that we have created are in the right format, but are missing >some kind of return or aski command. We have narrowed the problem down to a >formating issue in our METAR reports as compared to the ones recieved from >the nws. Is there some program that we can use here at A&M that will format >these so that DCHRLY will read them or have ya'll run into this problem from >someone else? Any info would be greatly appreciated. > > >Chris Allen >Texas A&M University >