Hopefully my internet connection will be up long enough to actually post this (very frustrating...can't wait for the new ISP to get set up).
Weather programs get live sensor data in packets from the VP console called "LOOP" packets ("LOOP" is the actual command that gets sent to the console). You request some number of loop packets, and then the console just spits them out about every 2.5 seconds. It allows the console more time to process sensor data if it doesn't have to process incoming commands frequently from the weather programs. Seeing the loop data ticking off means things are working.
In the next version of VirtualVP, the main "activity" screen will be relegated to secondary significance since it's more detail than most need to see. The main screen will display more meaningful and summarized info about the health of connections, etc.
Steve