Weather station
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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[edit]
- power
- solar panel
- battery or supercap? (check power budget)
- coaxial power feed?
- solar panel
- meshtastic IoT telemetry (+ repeater)
- APRS (+ digipeater and maybe igate?)
config issues[edit]
- broadcast frequency
- meshtastic vs aprs vs both?
- telemetry format?
- data collection and web presentation
Sensor possiblities[edit]
- 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
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? | ? | 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[edit]
- 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
Who cares about weather[edit]
- Day care?
- Arboretum?
- Emergency management
- Athletics / Thor guard
- Robinson Observatory
- UCF Weatherstem [1]
- Weather Underground University station
Weather station proposals[edit]
Goal: Propose a weather station or metastatic node installation to external entities
Level 1[edit]
- Bare meshtastic repeater node (any unattended node)
- Just get permission to install it at a location
Level 2[edit]
- 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[edit]
- 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[edit]
- 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