Chapter 4 _________________________________________________________________ Operation 
 
VAISALA ________________________________________________________________________ 73 
MESSAGE Command 
The MESSAGE command is used for displaying messages. The 
command format for the MESSAGE command is 
MESSAGE Message_number 
If the message number is not specified, FS11 displays a default message. 
The default message is the message that has been selected for automatic 
or polled mode with command SET MESSAGE TYPE. 
NOTE 
When displaying a message with the 
MESSAGE command, the 
message frames are not displayed.
 
 
All message frames end with 
 which represent the carriage return and 
line feed characters. This character is also used as a line separator in 
multi-line messages. 
The contents of the messages are described in the following sections. 
MESSAGE 1, FS11 
Message 1 is a message of fixed length where both extinction coefficient 
and background luminance values are shown. The message format is as 
follows: 
FSA
EXT   0.85 AL 0 ALS 8746 AL 0
CSUM
 
Start of the heading (ASCII 1) 
First character of the unit identifier, if the ID is not 
defined it is replaced by a space character 
Start of the text (ASCII 2) 
Extinction coefficient identifier and extinction 
coefficient value, unit km
-1
Alarm status of the visibility sensor 
Background luminance identifier and BL value, unit 
foot
-lambert. A foot-lambert equals 1 / π candela per 
square foot, or 3.426 cd/m
2
Alarm status of the background luminance sensor 
End of the text (ASCII 3) 
End of the transmission (ASCII 4) 
CR + LF (ASCII 13 + ASCII 10)