[Xastir] weather station

[Curt, WE7U]

On Thu, 18 Jan 2007, Gerry Creager wrote:

> Geez.  You're gonna make me finish the code I've started 3 or 4 times to
> support the Vaisala WXT-510:-)  That said, I suspect it's higher cost
> than most folks would like to spend, especially without any console!  It
> is a professional-grade instrument, though, which helps.
>
> I suspect you'd be pretty happy with the Davis or Peet hardware; plenty
> of options out there.  The Vantage Pro 2 is a good consumer unit, as is
> the Ultimeter.

The person didn't mention whether they were going to tie it into
APRS or to a serial port, and to what use they were going to put the
data.

Since this is the Xastir list perhaps the intent is to tie it into
Xastir and put the weather info out on APRS-RF or the internet
feeds?  If so then you'd want a station that'd tie into Xastir
easily.

What sort of info do you require?  If not a lot (wind speed/wind
direction, temperature), then something low-end might work, at least
for a while.  I'm thinking the AAG station.  Gerry might cringe at
that one though.

I keep hearing from others that you get what you pay for though, and
since I'm just getting into this weather station stuff at the
low-end (with a couple of different models) it might be a while
before I "see the light" and start saving my pennies for a Davis or
Peet Brothers station.

BTW:  Weather stations don't put out NMEA sentences on their serial
ports, that's generally a GPS serial port output.  Many weather
stations do have serial ports that you can hook up to, or an option
to add on a serial interface, but they all speak proprietary serial
protocols and you need software at the PC end that can decode them.

There are also a few smaller transmit-only TNC's out there that can
be hooked directly to a weather station and a radio to give you an
APRS weather station without having a full-blown computer in the
middle.  See the WXTrak (WxTrax?) and the OpenTracker.  There might
be others.  If you go this route you'll need to match them up with
the exact brand/models of weather station they support.

--
Curt, WE7U.   APRS Client Comparisons: http://www.eskimo.com/~archer
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