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?
  • 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]

Who cares about weather[edit]

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