Remote Weather Station

[Daniel]

Hi Everyone,
I'm interested in setting up a remote station and would be keen to hear from anyone in New Zealand who has done this using Mobile broadband. I have played around with a t-stick but cant seem to access it from the internet using its ip address.  Im also keen to hear if there are any other ways to get it working with wd from a site with no fixed line.
Thanks
Daniel

• Tweet

[Weather Display]

do you mean like
weather station -> router -> pc -> mobile internet

[Daniel]

I was thinking
station > weatherlink ip > router > mobile internet > pc at home > weather display

[Weather Display]

if you could port forward the IP address of the IP data logger (and have that as a fixed IP address)
and the mobile connection was always on
then WD could set to connect to that IP address (as a Davis IP data logger)

or

I was thinking of creating an iPhone app that could get the data and then upload a clientraw.txt file to a web site so that could then be used as a data source
i.e
weather station -> wireless router -> iphone running the app and connected to mobile internet -> that ftp uploads clientraw file  a web site

[iomkiwi]

How 'remote' is it?

I would have thought

station > pc > tstick

would be far simpler.

Use Teamviewer or similar if you need to get in from elsewhere

[Daniel]

Hi iomkiwi. The site has no power so i'm trying to keep a pc out of the equation at that end. Everything will run off panels. Hopefully also keep any problems at my end as the station is 180km from home.

Thanks Brian, the first suggestions is exactly what i am after. i have played with a tstick but haven't yet been able to get to it an external computer. Ill talk to telecom tomorrow about this.

The iphone option sounds good as a back up and i think wd can use it in client mode. Could wd then make php tags from that? My site relies heavily on wdtags.php

Cheers
Daniel

[Weather Display]

re the second option, yes, WD running on a pc some where else, set as client mode, getting the clientraw.txt file from the internet, it can then be set to create the test tags and update to a web site

[Daniel]

That sounds like the perfect solution then. 
My other plan leave the device open to attack which would waste the data.

[Weather Display]

a good thing about using a phone is its low power consumption for remote site
and you will be able to see the data on the phone app too, while you there setting up

I hoping if I created this app it might be usefull for others too

[Daniel]

After talking to Telecom, Vodafone & 2 Degrees no one offers a solution to connect to the ip of a mobile device. So as far as i can tell your proposal would be the only way to get data off a remote site, so i imagine there would a lot of interest from a fair few countries.

I was reading yesterday about a airport operator with remote landing strips in the outback who has the same problem. He ended up resorting to satellite. Unfortunately satellite requires a lot of power.

My flatmate just bought a new ipod so i could potentially use his old one connected to wifi from the data stick

Sounds promising!

[Weather Display]

the other solution is something like meteohub

I have investigated by idea by trying to create a simple app
hit a hurdle straight up, the socket component is not compatible with iOS
I will see if I can get it compatible...

[Daniel]

I wonder if android would work an better?
There are some very cheap android devices which might make this more appealing. I guess uploading a 800byte file means if wont need fantastic devices!

[Weather Display]

I will be able to compile to android in september, when the compiler I use is due to have android support added

thats if I can figure out how to get a TCP/IP socket client working on iOS

[Daniel]

awesome,
my Flatmate (a computer programmer) just mentioned he did some work with tcp/ip and iOS a while back and you should look at the C++ socket libraries.
Hopefully that will mean more to you than it does to me!!

[TonyC]

Maybe you could use an Arduino Mega board with an ethernet shield fitted which acts as a small web server.  The cell phone could provide the internet link. The arduino uses very little power and it could monitor all the sensors directly within your server code. Helps if you can program in C+.  The hardware is about US$45 on ebay.

Tony C.

[Daniel]

Thanks for the suggestion Tony.
Unfortunately i don't have the skills to do that.
My initial plan was to link a weatherlink ip up to a data-stick but the cellular network restrictions scuppered that plan.
I'm meeting with telecom business tomorrow to see if there is a way around this (might be overkill for a hobby site)
otherwise my hopes are pinned on a ipod or arm (raspberry pi) version of weather display.

[Weather Display]

weewx does work on a rasberry pi and has add ons for creating the clientraw files

[TonyC]

The cost of cell network data is still pretty high! I've got 3gb on my $40 a month plan, but that's only because they've forgotton to take it off after a special.
I see you can buy a complete system in the US which connects to two of the major carriers.
http://txwx.com/product-line/remote-weather-station/remote-weather-station-specifications/
Pretty expensive though by the time you pay freight, convert the dollar and pay GST.

[Weather Display]

I have ordered a rasberry pi now...so I can work on getting consolewd to work on that

[Daniel]

Thanks so much Brian, i think this will be welcomed by a fair few WD users.

Hi Tony
That weather station looks cool, unfortunately it is going to fall into the same trap and the weatherlink ip due to the network restrictions in New Zealand.
Telecom has just released new plans, so I have 500mb for $15. My calculations (if correct) mean i should use about 33mb a month (uploading once per minute).

clientraw.txt = 800bytes
convert to mb = (800/1024)/1024
= 0.00076mb x 60 x 24 x 30
=32.95mb