[aprssig] APRS WX question...

[Daron J. Wilson]

> At first they wanted quick and easy...but I think they
> are warming up to the "complete" setup above...anyway,
> just wanting to know if one of the tracker's can
> decode Davis stuff, just in case they want to go the
> quick and easy route...
> Thanks gang...

I believe the Byonics can parse the Davis stream, we first used the device
on our weather stations with a KPC3+ and a Peet Bros system because we
wanted to generate 'Kenwood readable' weather.  Dumping the Peet Bros
station into the KPC3+ will yield a form of the weather data, but it isn't
compliant with the spec and it isn't readable on the kenwoods.  We started
with the WxTracker using it to get the weather data out in a Kenwood
compatible format, but there were some issues with that as well.  Weather
went out in one packet and position in another, which isn't so great.

Our solution was a design from the ground up of a product called the
"weatherDog" which parses the Peet serial stream, manipulates and scales the
data, then spits it out into the KPC3+ so that the TNC transmits position
and weather data in the same packet.  For the most part it does what we
need.  Our engineer recently scaled it down to a 'lite' version that does
most of the same features and is much smaller, less power consumption, etc.

So, if you want quick and easy weather and don't mind that it isn't readable
on the kenwoods, one of the small tracker modules will do the trick.

We planned on making a jumper setting on the WeatherDOG so you could select
Davis or Peet or ?? but it turns out that decoding the Davis stream has been
less than friendly and we've pretty much stuck with one kind of instrument
so we have replacement parts, etc.

Here is what we presently collect from our sites:

http://www.ocrg.org/telemetry_feed/ocrgwx.html

73 and good luck

N7HQR
Oregon Coast Repeater Group