Author Topic: More mobile than remote, Vehicle Mounted Data Collection/Logging Weather Station  (Read 5535 times)

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Offline LiamHail

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Background: I am a college student studying meteorology in the NY great lakes region. I have two minors, one in broadcast and one in computer science (which I am just starting this upcoming semester, unfortunately). I am looking to do personal data collection of lake effect events while completing pre-recorded broadcasts for the campus news station or for my own personal page.

The current plan is to build a removable mount for my vehicle on which a Davis Vantage Vue ISS due to its compact and all in one size. Moreover what I am looking to ask what is the ideal set up to be able to broadcast live data from the field to a personal domain while also logging the data. The options I have researched are using a Weather Bridge or Weather Bridge Pro, or a Raspberry Pi set up, with a 3g/4g connection. My main thought would be to use Cumulus due to its relative ease of use with websites and templates. In addition, I would be foregoing the Davis Dataloggers for a Belfryboy or a Uksa data logger.

Are there different options available for the data to go through and be broadcast, and through what software? And what recommendations are there for 3g/4g mobile hot spots?

Offline ValentineWeather

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I would use a laptop with Cumulus and broadcast directly to website with some kind of mobile hotspot. The Saratoga scripts using ajax would work with cumulus and provide near realtime data. Or you could skip the personal website and go directly to WU using Cumulus and use there rapidfire for realtime.  Either option will work just finding reliable bandwidth will be the bigger challenge while mobile.
Randy

Offline LiamHail

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I would use a laptop with Cumulus and broadcast directly to website with some kind of mobile hotspot. The Saratoga scripts using ajax would work with cumulus and provide near realtime data. Or you could skip the personal website and go directly to WU using Cumulus and use there rapidfire for realtime.  Either option will work just finding reliable bandwidth will be the bigger challenge while mobile.
What I'm more worried about with broadcasting to WU is the fact that the station is mobile and that WU works off of location based observations. Is updating the location of the station constantly something that is possible with WU services?

Offline WeatherHost

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There are special units designed for Emergency Management and Mobile Command Posts.  They're generally used for longer term events such as wild fires, floods, chemical spills, etc.  They are specifically in tended for vehicular use and may include telescoping mounting poles, etc.


As far as uploading, I'd try to stick with your own website or similar.  Maybe somebody here has spare space they could offer that you could FTP to.


Offline ValentineWeather

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I would use a laptop with Cumulus and broadcast directly to website with some kind of mobile hotspot. The Saratoga scripts using ajax would work with cumulus and provide near realtime data. Or you could skip the personal website and go directly to WU using Cumulus and use there rapidfire for realtime.  Either option will work just finding reliable bandwidth will be the bigger challenge while mobile.
What I'm more worried about with broadcasting to WU is the fact that the station is mobile and that WU works off of location based observations. Is updating the location of the station constantly something that is possible with WU services?

True about WU and reliability for spot broadcast would be an issue also. Skip that idea.

Saratoga scripts work well with ajax and Cumulus so uploading to personal website and providing near realtime data would work. I can't give information about mobile hotspots but would use your current provider and hope they have coverage.
Randy

Offline LiamHail

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There are special units designed for Emergency Management and Mobile Command Posts.  They're generally used for longer term events such as wild fires, floods, chemical spills, etc.  They are specifically in tended for vehicular use and may include telescoping mounting poles, etc.


As far as uploading, I'd try to stick with your own website or similar.  Maybe somebody here has spare space they could offer that you could FTP to.

Unfortunately, those go for at minimum several thousand dollars. For my limited application monitoring its not worth it haha. I'll stick with the Davis, ambient weather has a good quote on it at the moment.

And thats good that working off of my own laptop would be the best, adding in the bridges would increase my costs significantly.