Weather station online!

This week I completed the weather station project and was able to get it online!  It's been working properly for several days in a row and now we've got both weather observations, history, and even a webcam so you can see Harris Hill and the National Soaring Museum has a presence with their name on it out in weather station land.

From Soaring

View the weather station page here: http://www.wunderground.com/weatherstation/WXDailyHistory.asp?ID=KNYELMIR5

Also, some more pilot specific pages that use the weather data are on our Harris Hill web site: http://www.harrishillsoaring.org/weather.htm

For those interested, here are the details of how the system works.

First, the system uses a Davis Vantage Pro 2 weather station mounted on our Flight Center.  That's it on the right hand side on the white pole in the photo below.  The tripod device in the center is a local weather station but it did not have the capability to place data on the internet, so we needed the Vantage Pro.

From Soaring

Second, is a web cam that looks out at the flight line.  Unfortunately, the picture isn't nearly this clear, but the camera was free, so beggars can't be choosers.  It works well enough but I may see about getting something with higher resolution.

From Soaring

Here's the web cam location (below, it is the white blotch with the extra cable hanging off of it above the window)

From Soaring

Here's a closeup.

From Soaring

The webcam uses a cable that connects to a computer (upper right above the window) while the weather station sends its data wirelessly to the console (mounted about halfway up between the windows in this photo).  The console has a USB plug that connects to the computer and downloads the weather station data periodically.

From Soaring

From Soaring

The computer has a WiFi USB dongle that is stuck in the window of the Flight Center, below.

From Soaring

Then comes the interesting part.  The Flight Center does not have internet access, but the National Soaring Museum has limited net access via a satellite connection.

From Soaring

Distance from the Flight Center to the NSM is around 1,000 feet.
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From Soaring

At the soaring museum end is a cantenna.  Literally, an antenna made from a tin can.  Bush's baked beans, to be exact.  Vegetarian, of course.  The can is encased in a length of pvc pipe for weatherproofing and mounted on the side of the NSM pointing at the flight center.  I found invaluable instructions for how to build this on this site.

From Soaring

The antenna wire is routed inside the building to a WiFi router (Linksys WRT54G) inside and a cable connects the router to the NSM internet router.  The data on the weather computer is sent to wunderground.com and the Harris Hill soaring weather pages here.

That's it!  We now have visual and weather observations for the Hill from afar.  I've already used it to gauge when the winds shifted from the South to the Northwesterly direction and make flying possible.  Other members also seem pleased with the system.

This was a fun project and one that I *thought* was within my technical abilities but wasn't sure about.  It took longer than I wanted, but in the end I'm really pleased I was able to figure out all the little twists and turns involved.  AND, now the NSM has a presence on the web so people will see what's up at Harris Hill!

Off topic bonus:  Today I flew 2 hours and 15 minutes in the ASK-21.  Good times.