Weather station

There has been some interest in setting up a wikipedia:Weather station on the roof. This could be integrated with Amateur Radio projects

Communication and power

• power
  • solar panel
    • battery or supercap? (check power budget)
  • coaxial power feed?
• meshtastic IoT telemetry (+ repeater)
• APRS (+ digipeater and maybe igate?)

config issues

• broadcast frequency
  • meshtastic vs aprs vs both?
• telemetry format?
• data collection and web presentation

Sensor possiblities

• Cheap sensors available from https://adafruit.com
• Sensors don't have to all be in the same place unless we want to power from a common source
• can use meshtastic to distribute telemetry if they are spread out
• somewhat complete commercial weather stations
  • https://www.peetbros.com/shop/

Sensor	source	difficulty	notes / cost
sun brightness	commercial	easy	<$5
UV sensor	commercial	easy, research	<$5, some are fake
uncalibrated temperature/humidity	commercial	easy	<$5
calibrated temperature	commercial	moderate	needs large enclosure to be accurate
rain present	both	easy/cheap
Rain	commercial	moderate	needs to be cleaned regularly
wind / wikipedia:Anemometer	commercial/ build	moderate	needs to be mounted in a good spot
wind / doppler	both? build	?	mount in a good spot
particulate density	commercial	cheap/easy
pollen laser spectrometer	both?	hard
solar radio spectrum / flare detector	?	?
distant lightning detector	build/kit	?
indirect lightning detector	build	?	transient voltage spikes in ground
potential lightning detector	build	experiment	capacitive voltage buildup
direct lightning detector	build	research	current/voltage

Actual sensors

• Adafruit
  • $1 photocell or phototransistor light sensor
  • $4 I2C AM2320 Temperature Humidity (not weather proof, questionable accuracy)
  • $5 DS18B20 Digital temperature sensor (Dallas 1 wire bus, can chain all of them)
  • $5 STEMMA QT temperature humidity (not weather proof)
  • $10 pressure altitude temperature humidity not weather proof
  • $15 temperature pressure humidity (not weather proof)
  • $25 weather proof temperature humidity (without shield needed for calibration)
  • $45 air quality sensor particle diameter and concentration (not weather proof?)
  • $2 Simple Water Detection Sensor
  • $2-$10 PIR motion sensors (detect person presence ~20ft)
    • could be used to send alert if the device is messed with
  • ?? water level sensor?

Other parts

• weather proof boxes
• box vent
• IPEX to N panel mount water proof antenna connector
• N style antenna (build?)
• solar ready meshtastic node
• solar panel
• battery

Who cares about weather

• Day care?
• Arboretum?
• Emergency management
• Athletics / Thor guard
• Robinson Observatory
• UCF Weatherstem [1]
• Weather Underground University station

Weather station proposals

Goal: Propose a weather station or metastatic node installation to external entities

Level 1

• Bare meshtastic repeater node (any unattended node)
• Just get permission to install it at a location

Level 2

• outside style meshtastic node
• Minimal weather station, propose sensor options and see what they care about
• Propose data collection and history, available online

Level 3

• Full commercial weather station (>$300) including at least wind, shielded calibrated temperature, rain gauge
• full data collection made available through meshtastic and/or APRS
• May need to elevate station to improve accuracy (esp. wind) and reduce tampering
• Historical data available from a web page / database

Level 3a

• Interactive user weather information node
• Include speaker or horn for audible SAME alerts
• Include FM radio or SDR and Pi to receive SAME and possibly trigger a speaker
• Include a button to listen to live NWS WX radio
• Include instructions (QR code?) to connect to bluetooth to see live data
• Possibly include data from other weather stations (network??)
• Note: higher power consumption!! needs big battery and big solar panel

External links

• https://perryweather.com/use-cases/construction/