Old Weather Forum

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On the weather page, please enter: date, locations, distances (knots and tenths), courses, and all the weather data in the columns outlined in red in the spreadsheet.
It is not necessary to record State of the Sea.
However, ice mentioned in the weather grid should be transcribed using the magenta Sea column.

On the events page please enter: ice, location information, and sailing information.
Aurorae, volcanic, and seismic activity should be reported in the forum.
The names of US Navy and Coast Guard ships met should be noted. This gives the science team a chance to compare weather readings. You can include all ships mentioned in a single entry without a time or any additional data.
Other events are optional.

One person can do both weather and events (Stream 1), but the system also allows one person to do the weather page (Stream 1) and a second person to do the events page (Stream 3).
Unlike in OW3, where three transcriptions were required for each page, we are doing only one transcription per page.

Every transcriber needs to enter the date.
The date is used to organize the pages.

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See Manning -- General for some general background and discussion.
See Manning -- Examples for a quick introduction to transcribing or a refresher.

See Transcribing Guide to learn how to transcribe the data.
Post in Ask Questions Here or this topic if you have questions.

OW web site: Manning

Direct links:

• Tracker
• Spreadsheet
• File Upload
• Transcription Status

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I have reserved March.

March right along

I'm taking a look at the first log page to get an idea of what I'll be dealing with. What I see makes sense except for the 8 PM location on the weather page. It looks like a bearing of N90W to Yellow Island Light. Am I missing something. It seems like that would just be the same as W. Is this sometimes done when logging in this format to enter the full string such as N90W rather than just W? Or did the logger make a mistake, or am I missing something?

https://catalog.archives.gov/OpaAPI/med ... 5_0080.JPG

Is this sometimes done when logging in this format to enter the full string such as N90W rather than just W?

Apparently...
See Slide 4: https://www.southalabama.edu/geography/ ... Dblock.pdf
Although it seems to be optional: http://www.ruralvt.com/ancientroads/bea ... ations.php

Good find, Gordon and Randi. Because of that, I made a check that a direction like N12E should have a number portion between 1 and 90.

I'll just collect these sorts of checks for now into a version 3_3b.

Michael wrote: ↑Wed Dec 09, 2020 3:22 pm Good find, Gordon and Randi. Because of that, I made a check that a direction like N12E should have a number portion between 1 and 90.

I'll just collect these sorts of checks for now into a version 3_3b.

From the link Randi provided:

The second portion is an angle between 0 and 90 degrees.

So you should probably check for between 0 and 90.

I'm starting out using Manning_1914_1915_v3_2.ods, but will switch to a 3_3b version if you want to create one.

Good point. Done.

I'll make a 3b for Manning 1915 and let you know when it's done.

One more question. I see a lot of dittos. I seem to remember a discussion a while back about whether to enter dittos down the column, TWYS, or enter the value from above that they represent, possibly using the copy down shortcut key. I don't recall what was decided.

TWYS: https://forum.oldweather.org/index.php? ... #msg156424

Thank you for the quick response. I'm ready to start now.

This will be good practice for learning to interpret the older style script.

Inasmuch as my software just copies the original data, I'm OK if you use CopyDown. Either way, the data that gets sent to the science team has the actual values and not the dittos. When I've been encountering them, I've used CopyDown, just because it's quicker.

I was thinking it wouldn't make a difference if the software was changing it anyway. I agree that it's faster to copy down the value instead of entering a ditto and copying it down. It's obvious what the log keeper intended. So we aren't changing the data.

Exactly!

Log for March 14 contains a couple of unusual entries.

The course at 8AM appears as: I transcribed this as "NW1/2W / NW" and added a transcriber note.

The location at 8AM shows the latitude as DR, and the longitude as Obs. Since the form only accepts one, I selected DR and added a transcriber note.

In the events at 1:32AM I struggled trying to verify the spelling of Langara Island. I couldn't find anything that came close for Alaska, but finally figured out they were still close to BC and Langara Island is in Canada.

https://catalog.archives.gov/OpaAPI/med ... 5_0090.JPG

"NW1/2W / NW" and DR are good.

In the 4am to 8am events you can see that they changed course from NW 1/2 W to NW at 7:45.
6am also has two courses.


Yes, many a time I looked in the wrong country

One quick way is to use Matteo's Find a Place.

I entered Manning's 8 AM Lat/Long, selected a radius of 200 miles and entered Lang for the place. You need only part of a name, so even just ara will bring up what you need. It's a great tool, and why we spend so much time adding places referenced by our ships.

March is complete.

The month was mostly spent checking on fishing fleets and offering medical or other assistance. Dozens of boats were boarded.