I’m trying to find out what would be a good solution for our yacht clubs weather station.
We want to build a weather station so that the sensor/weather station is situated on top of a lighthouse and the data should be sent to our clubhouse, which is 2-3 kilometers from the lighthouse. From the clubhouse we want to get the data to our website.
I was thinking of maybe the Vaisala WXT-510 for the sensor and Weather Display for the software.
Does anyone have experience or suggestions how to connect a weather station (not nesessarily WXT-510) to our clubhouse using somekind of wireless connection?
What else do I need to build a system as described before?
I’m also greatful for tips what weather station could be the best choice for our needs.
The connection question is probably the most important one. Is the 2-3km line of sight? One possibility might be to put a WiFi link in with directional antennas. The link options may limit the type of station you can install.
I measured the distance, and the accurate distance is 1.8km. And yes it is line of sight. I found out that the WiFi connection is possible with for example Buffalo 2.4GHz Wireless Outdoor Directional Antenna (range 3km). I looked at the Chicester harbour and they used radio modems. Any experience in use of those?
The thing what is also unclear for me at the time is that what kind of weather sensor would be compatible to a solution like this?
Also if I’ve got the WiFi connection between our clubhouse, ok. What kind of data logger is capable to get the data from my sensor and send it through my WiFi to the clubhouse, without having to install a pc in the lighthouse?
I quickly checked out out quickly the Chicester harbour site and I think it might be very useful. I’ll contact them as soon as possible. Thanks for the link.
If you can get WiFi running then you can probably use any serial port based station. You’d need a WiFi router at the remote end, plus RS232 to Ethernet converter. People are running stations across RS232->Ethernet links without problems and using WiFi just extends the network to a greater distance, but that isn’t a realy problem.
Radio modems will depend on local licensing rules and what’s available. I assume they just extend the serial link using a radio between the two, so it’s nearly the same thing as the WiFi link I suggested. You’d also need to watch the baud rates required to make a link. Radio modems running at 1200/2400 baud are fairly common, but faster modems are trickier to build. The default baud rate on a Davis VP2 is 19200 which is fast for a radio modem, although I don’t know if you need to run it this fast to get data out of it quickly enough.
One significant difference is that the WiFi parts should all be fairly easy to source and won’t need special licensing. It might be tricker to source radio modems and work out any licence issues. If you can find radio modems that will run fast enough and licensing isn’t an issue then that’s as good a choice as the WiFi solution.
The project is going forward. We decided to have Campbell instruments and radio modem connection. The assembly starts today. We are going to use Weather Display as the software.
I’ll keep you posted on the project and give a link when it’s done.
Hi Antii,
I’d be interested in your solution also. We too would like a weather station at our sailing club (we have a Davis unit) but do not have telephone lines to connect to the internet. Your plan sounds very interesting and could be the solution we are looking for so could you keep us informed on how you get on please?
We have a radio modem connection between the club house and the instruments. We got a Finnish company to install the modem connection and the datalogger.