Topic: My setup for a VERY remote Wx station

[WA4OPQ]

Here's the setup for my next project. It's a weather station for a remote location without internet. The 2902 array talks to the GW1000 which talks to the Raspberry Pi on the right (Weewx), which talks to the red circuit board on top, a modem TNC which talks to the ham radio on the left which talks on 144.39 MHz to the ham APRS network which talks to CWOP.

With good conditions this could have 50 - 100 mile range.  It is CWOP only, no wunderground or other networks.

[Rover1822]

I'm not a HAM operator, but incorporating the HAM sounds very cool

[galfert]

Please share more details on the TNC and your radio choices.

I'm also interested to see how WeeWX communicates with the TNC.

[galfert]

Realize that by uploading to CWOP once registered means that MADIS will pick you up. Then there are several other networks that show MADIS stations.

• Windy
• PWSweather - their new beta site

See here too:
https://www.wxforum.net/index.php?topic=35089.0

[WA4OPQ]

Scott: Thanks! It's fun to incorporate two hobbies.

Galfert: I chose TNC-Pi https://tnc-x.com/TNCPi.htm, but unfortunately it's no longer in production. For my next one I'll use DireWolf https://github.com/wb2osz/direwolf with a USB audio dongle. My APRS program is YAAC https://www.ka2ddo.org/ka2ddo/YAAC.html.
My radio choice was the cheapest one on Amazon. The one I have is 10 watts, for the same price I can now get a 25 watt one https://www.amazon.com/VV-898S-136-174-400-470MHz-Tranceiver-Programming/dp/B07SR874C1
WeeWx exports a file "wxnow.txt" and YAAC imports it. It's not fully perfected yet. The interface that pulls the data from Weewx does not grab the 1-hour and 12-hour rainfall. We are trying to get it fixed. https://github.com/weewx/weewx/wiki/cwxn

[nautiboy]

Sorry for bringing up an old topic.  Following this thread and some threads and references elsewhere, I just got my WX station working with direwolf and weewx running on an rpi, and I wanted to point out that there's a small issue with the cwxn.py implementation, at least for APRS use.   

At first I thought everything was going great - I was beaconing out the wxnow.txt info and looking at aprs.fi everything looked good.  But then I looked at the info in findu and noticed the dew point seemed to be messed up.  Looking at it more closely, that was because the humidity was wrong.  Instead of, for example, 92%, it was showing up as 9%.  So I took a closer look at the format of the data.  The humidity is being formatted as a 3 digit number by cwxn.  But the APRS spec and CWOP spec indicate it should be 2 digits, and 00 should be interpreted as 100%.  Apparently aprs.fi is being tolerant of the 3-digit number, but findu is not. 

I made a small change to cwxn.py to convert 100 to 0 and to format as %02d instead of %03d.  All looks good in both aprs.fi and findu now. 

BTW, in case it's relevant, I'm using the cwxn.py that was posted in the https://groups.google.com/g/weewx-user/c/TUn5ibGr9uo thread.

My station:
https://tempestwx.com/station/28304
https://www.wunderground.com/dashboard/pws/KCAPACIF205
http://www.findu.com/cgi-bin/wxpage.cgi?call=AE6DC-5&last=240
https://aprs.fi/info/a/AE6DC-5

-Dave AE6DC

[Mattk]

The three (3) things that need to be taken into account with remote stations

1) Power
2) Power
3) Power

[WA4OPQ]

Agreed.
My latest project is a solar & battery setup.
The good news: I have complete control over power
The bad news: I have complete responsibility for the power.

[WA4OPQ]

By the way...

This is how my hardware is progressing. With luck, field trials start next month.
Upper left is Pi Zero W atop a radio modem (TNC), middle is a DTMF control relay board, upper right is GW1000.
Lower left is 12v-5v converter. Lower right is 10/25w VHF/UHF tranceiver.
Software is WeeWx and APRX

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[WA4OPQ]

Here's the latest version. I've incorporated the solar charger inside the cabinet (lower left) and have added a module (center top) to measure battery current, volts and power (which is sent to me via radio telemetry). It is currently in my backyard for testing.

With the longer nights and cloudy days in the winter I underestimated the power requirements and generating capacity, I've changed from a 30W solar panel to a 75W model. If the weather is good this next week I will change from a 31 Ah battery to a 80 Ah.

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The telemetry can be seen here: https://aprs.fi/telemetry/a/WA4OPQ-6