19990810: mcidasx weather data

>From: address@hidden
>Organization: St. Cloud State
>Keywords: 199908101442.IAA20291 McIDAS-X Fkey

Todd,

>I've been working on getting mcidasx running on met56g here at SCSU, and
>I'm running into a problem in getting current weather data to come into
>the program and be displayed.

Did you:

o mount the disk on waldo that has the McIDAS datasets
o add REDIRECTions to the account(s) from which you are trying to display
  data on met56g

>I did the tests per the instructions at
>www.unidata.ucar.edu/packages/mcidas/mcx/test_mcx.html and they all ran
>fine.

OK, so the distribution works correctly.

>However, when I try to display current weather data, I get errors
>such as "Error in startup script : system key word 2001 read failed (-3)"

This is telling you that the Fkey menu is not finding the file SYSKEY.TAB.
It would find SYSKEY.TAB through a file REDIRECTion.  SYSKEY.TAB would
be found in the directory into which the ldm-mcidas decoders on waldo
are writing their output data files.

>My intuition tells me that mcidas is trying to get data locally from
>met56g,

Or it can't find SYSKEY.TAB.

>when it should be getting the data from waldo.  I basically
>"copied" everything from waldo to met56g,

What is everything?  I am assuming that you are talking about the McIDAS-X
distribution and not the data.  If this is the case, then the REDIRECTion
to SYSKEY.TAB (and probably ALL of the data files) will not be correct
if the directory containing the data is named differently (by virtue of
the NFS mount) than on waldo.

>and my gut tells me there must
>be some settings I need to switch to have it point to waldo, not itself.

Right.

>Something similar to the mount command used with NFS for OS/2?

If waldo's data disk is mounted (is it?), then your session is probably
lacking the appropriate REDIRECTions.

>Just a
>complete copy *.* seems a bit too easy, there's got to be more to it.

Again, I assume a complete copy means that you copied the McIDAS-X
distribution.  If so, and if you are attempting to run as the user 'mcidas'
on met56g, then you probably need to change the REDIRECTions.  By the way,
any/all users will also need this new REDIRECTion information, so you
should:

o cd to ~mcidas/data
o cp EXAMPLE.NAM LOCAL.NAM
o edit LOCAL.NAM and change the disk locations to match the current setup
o restore what you just set in LOCAL.NAM in a running McIDAS-X session:

  REDIRECT REST LOCAL.NAM

>Any guidance would be appreciated.

Try the above and let me know the results.

>Thanks!

You are welcome.

Tom