@galfert: If you're able to install an OS on RPi, you'll be able to use RTL_433 with the RTL-SDR. The SDR is seriously plug and play. All the work is installing RTL_433. The SDR needed no special configuration.
Make sure your SDR includes an antenna and coax, to further simplify.
Thank you. But I'm far from being technically challenged, being that I am an IT person. I just see SDR as a needlessly more complex solution (not complicated and difficult, just overly engineered because of lack of available API) with more moving parts compared to simply installing Cumulus MX, Meteobridge, Weather-Display, or WeeWX on an RPi and done. It's the means to the end where with SDR you are basically reinventing the wheel (creating your own receiver, having to use a separate barometer, and then parsing and sending the data to a more limited set of software) when I already have a perfectly good device on the network (a console) that instantly provides live data simultaneously via API to more applications.
For some stations, I understand the need for SDR as a solution, when an API is not available. But that could have been a consideration when deciding on what to invest in. And of course I'm not saying those that decided to go with SDR got caught with their pants down. I'm just saying that at least for me this was a deciding factor that weighed heavily. It is the reason I became so involved with Ecowitt to ensure that all the popular applications had access to their newest API when I became one of the first few to beta test the GW1000.
This has gotten a bit off topic. I simply commented that I thought it was funny that someone would pass up on using a Raspberry Pi for fear of complexity, when I saw it as the exact opposite compared to SDR on a PC. But ultimately there is plenty of help in the community for anyone to utilize any method.
