[aprssig] APRS WX question...

[Bob Bruninga]

By all means!

Positionless WX and weatherless-position are an anathma to the APRS concept.  Please make sure all APRS WX stations transmit the ORIGINAL APRS WX format (called "complete")which contains both position and Weaher in the same packet.

In APRS, all information is supposed to be STAND-ALONE and concise, without any need for apriori info.  A single packet should have all you need to understand what is in that packet.

Positionless WX and weatherless-position for WX stations violates that fundamental APRS principal.  Thanks, Bob, WB4APR.

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  enwoods.  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