Hey, Im thinking of setting up a remote weather station at my local and having the data (wind speed) uploaded to the web to access it at home or on a smart phone. Not sure just how hard it would be to set up and how much it would cost.
Does anyone have experience with it?

www.ambientweather.com/

Something like this maybe

watch your local favourite tree

Yep, I've looked into those. The feature of having your own weather underground page to access readings is awesome.

The main issues are that the unit must 1) be always connected to a wifi network 2) have good exposure to clean wind from any direction 3) be in a safe place and 4) easy to access for maintenance and troubleshooting...

So unless you are lucky enough to install it on the roof of a house or business (that have wifi) and that is ideally located (right next to the kite beach), I don't think it's worth it.

cool, thanks for your thoughts.

There is a Yacht club reasonably close to the area, so i might approach them as they would also benefit from it.

One at the beach would be nice as well. If you get onto this let me know

Select to expand quote

kitcho207 said..


cool, thanks for your thoughts.

There is a Yacht club reasonably close to the area, so i might approach them as they would also benefit from it.

I remember John (? not sure name) from coastalwatch.com back in the early 90s started the same thing and approached as many yacht clubs, life saving clubs, etc all the way from Vic to Noosa and has heaps of web cams running all at once for a while there. It's shrunk a lot since then (shame), but he just went up to them, a phone call later and somehow managed to get a unit rigged up (camera unit - not weather station). I guess he had $$ from somewhere.

Hey Kitcho207,
I work for a company that supplies and services remote monitoring sites of every description. Being a keen kiter I have thought of doing this at my local for years. The biggest problem is finding a location. Vandals and drop kicks have a surprising aptitude for mindless destruction and can shatter even the best laid plans. If I was not worried about loss of equipment I would recommend a system comprising of a RM Young 05106 marine wind speed/direction meter connected to a Campbell CR800 logger. We use a lot of packet data modems (modmax mostly) that transmit data every 10 minutes to an IP address for use on client web pages. You need mobile signal for these to work though. Minimum power requires a 40W solar panel and 64 A/hr battery which are highly desirable for bandits. A set up such as this has stood the test of time but costs at least 10K with ongoing monthly charges for the modem (which is why i have never risked installing one at my local beach). There is plenty of cheap stuff out there that will work for a time but they all have their downsides. Good luck.

Hey Kicho207

I am using one of these. Low power, designed to run from solar and battery. U can publish data by LAN or 3G. With 1 minute update for wind speed and direction, humidity, temp and barometric pressure I use about $2 a month worth of data on an Amaysym PAYG plan.
Distributor is in Sydney, Designer in Darwin.

http://www.microme.com.au/wizo-network-gsm-gprs-autonomous-weather-station.html

Has a neat Android app also so all the hard work has been done.

thanks guys. lots of good advice there. 10k is a bit out of reach for the purpose intended but i value the comments on vandals,

that last one looks to be the business, so ill do some more homework on that and see how we go.

thanks heaps for sharing

Kitch

Select to expand quote

kitcho207 said..

thanks guys. lots of good advice there. 10k is a bit out of reach for the purpose intended but i value the comments on vandals,

that last one looks to be the business, so ill do some more homework on that and see how we go.

thanks heaps for sharing

Kitch

Kitcho...you will make your local VERY popular with one of these.....may not be the best idea unless you love crowded kiting.

Hey Cybersea,
Thanks for sharing, nice neat product and designed by lovers of wind. Cheers.

I think the guys on the north shore of sydney have something like this setup
Have to be a a local to get login details no doubt but they would probly have some good advice

Select to expand quote

fingerbone said..

kitcho207 said..

thanks guys. lots of good advice there. 10k is a bit out of reach for the purpose intended but i value the comments on vandals,

that last one looks to be the business, so ill do some more homework on that and see how we go.

thanks heaps for sharing

Kitch

Kitcho...you will make your local VERY popular with one of these.....may not be the best idea unless you love crowded kiting.

only a select few need to know its there. would try to hide the hardware as much as possible. it doesn't even have to be at the exact location. 500m away mounted up a tree maybe and painted in cammo. the idea is to get to data on a home PC or on a smart phone.
:)

Checkout microme.com.au
Nick does a good unit, send him an email about his unit and he will do u a deal!
Cheers

Select to expand quote

kitcho207 said...
thanks guys. lots of good advice there. 10k is a bit out of reach for the purpose intended but i value the comments on vandals,

that last one looks to be the business, so ill do some more homework on that and see how we go.

thanks heaps for sharing

Kitch

Kitch, I installed a webcam at my local SLSC and hope to install a remote weather station as well. John, who runs his own webcam and weather station lives near me and was very helpful when I called him and asked for some advice. Might be worth a try.

www.trembath.com/html/weather.html

http://webcams.bsch.au.com/adelaide_seacliff_sw.html

Have a look at holfuy.com too.
I am getting one for my local spot here in Albury.

Doing one over here now. Probably similar to the BrightonWeather above. Total expenditure to date: $160. (including the Raspberry Pi)Based on this:www.weather.dragontail.co.uk/index.php?page=station_setup









www.wunderground.com/dashboard/pws/IWESTERN313

Good post Robbo... And amazing weather station location!
Are you getting a true reading up there on the hill, compared to wind speed @ water level?

Yep Ive got a tree across the road from my place which tells me when its worth hitting the water,its so accurate i can tell when it will be only marginal and not worth the effort,its a sth sth/east indicating tree :)- now to find another tree for the n/easter

Select to expand quote

surfingboye said...
Good post Robbo... And amazing weather station location!
Are you getting a true reading up there on the hill, compared to wind speed @ water level?

Seems pretty good since I raised the sensors another 1.5m by putting them on an old windsrurfing mast. There's a house just to the south but the top of the mast is pretty close to the top of the house now. When the upper deck is finished on the house where it's located, we'll put it up another couple of meters and it'll be clear of everything. Wind at the top of the hill is pretty similar to what you see at the beach. Hoping that this will be helpful come summer, to make the call on heading for Coronation.

If anyone wants any tips on how it all goes together and where to find the bits, PM me and I'll help as much as I can. It's not perfect and there are quite a few stumbling points along the way that can easily trip you up, and I've had it go offline for no discernable reason a couple times.

Just a little pre-warning, if you're not comfortable poking around in terminal windows and following someone else's Linux code instructions then you might find it frustrating. I'm not a coder and I only know enough Linux to be dangerous, but that's about it. But I got it to work eventually!

Here's the weather station I used.
http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Pro-Wireless-Touch-Screen-Weather-Station-USB-PC-81-/390366063833?pt=AU_Gadgets&hash=item5ae3a16cd9&_uhb=1

And you can get a Raspberry Pi from Element14/Farnell.
downloads.element14.com/raspberryPi1.html

So far, the only thing of concern about the weather station is that it tends to register rain when there is none sometimes and the amounts that it reports when it is raining seem significantly inflated.

On a related subject, next trick is to put a webcam up there. Anyone got any suggestions for some low-cost hardware for the job?

The birds ate my anemometer

Was fun while it lasted

Hey Kitcho,
Ian is always there, and he is tall enough to put a weather station on his head!
Mick

Aww thats a bit harsh for ian. He is always down there tho.

Thanks for all the posts and info. Really good stuff... and not big $$$