Topic: Options for a station to collect data locally, possibly send through APRS

[Oxyacetylene]

I am wanting to set up a weather station at home, and be able to log the data locally and maybe to the web. I am not yet on WU or one of the other services. Ultimately I would like to get the data out via APRS in conjunction with logging. If I send via APRS then sites like APRS.fi will log data over time as long as I am reaching an iGate. I have been looking at weewx as well for logging and presenting the data. What hardware would you recommend for the weather station? I will need something with either serial, USB, or the ability to set a custom URL for sending data. There are a number of cheap weather stations with nice looking consoles, but a lot of those will only let you select a checkbox to send to WU and/or WeatherCloud. Is there a decent performance station that I could use which doesn't cost several hundred dollars? I would even be OK with putting together my own station from a package of sensors if that is better. As for a console, a premade console would be nice, but I could probably put something together with a Raspberry Pi to just display the data. Once I get my station set up then I'd like to set up a second for my parents, and that way especially during power outages and storms, I could see the APRS weather from my handheld radio.

[R.Sidetrack]

My suggestion is Ecowitt.  And you don't need to buy a display console. Take a look at the GW1100 gateway:
 https://shop.ecowitt.com/products/gw1100?srsltid=AfmBOooe9ov2DRMbs20uIl_jIJ__X2j00l5aQ5llmJVYE1U8OCJdUKAX

Pair that with whatever sensors you like. Good support. Your data remains "yours" without any ongoing fees. Easy to upload to a variety of sites, although I have not tried APRS.

While the GW1100 is suitable for what I think you said you want, a GW3000 adds wired ethernet, SD card data storage and remote retrieval, and an external antenna for longer range transmission from the sensors.

[Wooks61]

For more information on Ecowitt  products take a look at:
https://meshka.eu/Ecowitt/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=start

I use CumulusMX

[Oxyacetylene]

Thank you both, lots of good info. I now have an Ecowitt setup on the way. I am thinking about future expansion, where I would like to monitor the inside temp and humidity of my detached shop, which is a metal building, and is about 300ft away from the house. If I used a second gateway, could I feed that data into weewx to be able to build a dashboard that shows all of the data? I was reading that weewx can only have one driver running at a time, so would that be fine if I were using the interceptor, and just feeding data in from two different gateways?

[R.Sidetrack]

Thank you both, lots of good info. I now have an Ecowitt setup on the way. I am thinking about future expansion, where I would like to monitor the inside temp and humidity of my detached shop, which is a metal building, and is about 300ft away from the house.

I have a similar situation, my barn / shop has metal walls & roof.  My 'easy'  solution to managing data from multiple gateways is to just use the Ecowitt.net page and utilize the 'drop-down' button to switch between gateways. See screenshot  showing various gateways. (The 'drop-down' is black, imposed on the gray background, so is somewhat murky, but its directly above the "41.4F")

My CumulusMX installation just captures data from my main gateway.

[Oxyacetylene]

Very nice! I may try out Cumulus MX as well.

[Wooks61]

There is an option in CumuluxMX to use a second station for extra sensors.

In the "Settings" -> "Extra Sensors"  set-up.


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[Oxyacetylene]

That looks like it would do it! Thanks!

[K2GW]

I'm not sure about the 300 ft distance for your shop, but with my Ambient 2000 (Which I believe is Ecowit) , I have three additional temp/humidity sensors beyond the single one that came with the unit.  These are located in my unheated attic, upstairs bedroom, and basement to supplement the original one in my kitchen.  The "Indoor" area on my WS-2000 display scrolls through all four and they are also visible on the Ambient Web app.

[Wooks61]

Don't know if you seen these  3rd party upload options for CumulusMX, but you mentioned WU and APRS:
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[sparky1784]

My suggestion is Ecowitt.  And you don't need to buy a display console. Take a look at the GW1100 gateway:
 https://shop.ecowitt.com/products/gw1100?srsltid=AfmBOooe9ov2DRMbs20uIl_jIJ__X2j00l5aQ5llmJVYE1U8OCJdUKAX

Pair that with whatever sensors you like. Good support. Your data remains "yours" without any ongoing fees. Easy to upload to a variety of sites, although I have not tried APRS.

While the GW1100 is suitable for what I think you said you want, a GW3000 adds wired ethernet, SD card data storage and remote retrieval, and an external antenna for longer range transmission from the sensors.

Is there any configuration out there that is setup to locally record, store, retrieve the wx station data without having to have a 'free subscription'
I noticed that the ecowitt website states, "After signing up to our free Ecowitt Weather service, you can [have access to your history data] via graph or data spread sheets."
I have a weather station that does the same thing and I think it is absurd to have to logon somewhere to retrieve my own data. I can store it locally and play with my own data. Why the subscription? That suggests that others have access to my data....for free?
Maybe I am missing something?

[PaulMy]

Is there any configuration out there that is setup to locally record, store, retrieve the wx station data without having to have a 'free subscription'

I can store it locally and play with my own data.

Maybe I am missing something?

CumulusMX will receive the data from the station, display it in text or charts, save it in data files on your computer, and FTP or PHP upload if you have a website.  You can use (play with) the local saved data however you want.

Enjoy,
Paul

[R.Sidetrack]

I have a weather station that does the same thing and I think it is absurd to have to logon somewhere to retrieve my own data. I can store it locally and play with my own data. Why the subscription? That suggests that others have access to my data....for free?
Maybe I am missing something?

As PaulMy notes, [free] CumulusMX will allow you  to store and manipulate your data locally. And you do not need to send anything to Ecowitt.net if you don't want to.

There are people out there that don't want to mess with having a local server, so ecowitt.net is a convenient (no-cost) way for them to manage weather data, 'in the cloud'.

Even if you do contribute data to ecowitt.net, it is not "public" unless you set the toggle to make it public.  Of course, regardless of the toggle, one should expect that the manufacturer could review your data if they wish.

[Mattk]

Yep Davis specifically has a APRS data logger but of course elected to follow the subscription $$  

[sparky1784]

I can understand that there are those who do not want to mess with a local server and want to use a service.
I don't.
So, the question remains....is there a wx station available without those 'strings' attached? I do not want to log in to get my own data or share my data.
I can't seem to find one out of the box.
Maybe I will have to put one together myself?

I can't be the only one to ask this question, but I haven't found anything in my search on this site. I guess I am not asking the right question.

[Paulcheffus]

Hi

The Ecowitt stations are able to write your data to a custom server. I have mine doing just this to a raspberry pi on my local network.

Cheers

Paul

[johnd]

I can't be the only one to ask this question....

But what exactly is the question? It's not very clear. There have been several answers in this thread that seem to address what you want, but presumably they don't pass muster for some reason. For example, a Davis VP2 ISS received by an Envoy unit with a USB or WiFi logger and sending data to a local computer of some description (eg Windows PC or Raspberry Pi) and running CumulusMX software would be one such solution. No need to sign up to any network if you don't want to. What is it about this sort of suggestion that doesn't work for you?

[Oxyacetylene]

I am up and running with an Ecowitt based system. GW3000, WS68, WN32, WH40H. I am happy with the system, and have already added a leak detector and second indoor sensor. I plan to add some others. The ecowitt.net dashboard is really nice as well as their app for your smartphone. I do still want to set up weewx at some point and tie everything into home assistant...but for now I am really enjoying this setup. The Ecowitt dashboard appears to be using Grafana, if you are familiar with that. One of my next projects I think will be to try and get an indoor temp sensor to communicate from my detached shop (metal building) to the gateway in the house. I could set up a second gateway, but then the sensor data would be on a separate dashboard page since the sensors are registered to a console/gateway. I may experiment with trying to add an external antenna to the WN31 type sensor. APRS is still on my list of what I want to set up as well.

[R.Sidetrack]

I could set up a second gateway, but then the sensor data would be on a separate dashboard page since the sensors are registered to a console/gateway.

If you were to install CumulusMX, it has the option for adding sensors from an additional gateway. See the screenshot

[Oxyacetylene]

I could set up a second gateway, but then the sensor data would be on a separate dashboard page since the sensors are registered to a console/gateway.

If you were to install CumulusMX, it has the option for adding sensors from an additional gateway. See the screenshot

Good to know! I was sure that CumulusMX or Weewx would have an option to do that. If I end up needing a second gateway then that's what I'll plan to do. I just hate to set up a separate gateway and then only be using the embedded temp sensor in it. I can't think of any other sensors I'd need inside the shop, and any around the outside would probably have the same issue with getting through the metal skin of the building.

[Wooks61]

I could set up a second gateway, but then the sensor data would be on a separate dashboard page since the sensors are registered to a console/gateway.

If you were to install CumulusMX, it has the option for adding sensors from an additional gateway. See the screenshot

Good to know! I was sure that CumulusMX or Weewx would have an option to do that. If I end up needing a second gateway then that's what I'll plan to do. I just hate to set up a separate gateway and then only be using the embedded temp sensor in it. I can't think of any other sensors I'd need inside the shop, and any around the outside would probably have the same issue with getting through the metal skin of the building.

The number of sensors of all kinds will grow ....   believe me....