[ILUG] Remote weather station

[Ronan Cunniffe]

Tony Groves wrote:
> This is an interesting thread, since I have been half-thinking of
> installing a weather station at a remote building I maintain in the
> Wicklow mountains. There's no internet connection there, but there is a
> mobile signal, so I suppose the solution would be to find some way to
> attach a mobile phone to an on-site GNU/Linux machine, send the info by
> SMS, and update the website from that. Must admit, I've done no serious
> research yet, but since the topic has arisen, it would be nice to hear
> if anybody has ideas about hardware/software for the communications end
> of things.
>   
    I've built exactly this - a remote weatherstation/datalogger with 
only GSM access.
GPRS modems are not expensive - try Ebay.  Serial-to-USB converters are 
also pretty cheap - you can even get 2-port and 4-port versions. 

EEEPCs or Dell Minis make great data loggers - the integrated keyboard 
and screen are nice for debugging.  The only drawback is that laptops 
tend not to have that nice BIOS option for when power is restored to 
switch the computer On/Off/Last-State.  So for laptops, there's a 
failure mode if a power-cut lasts long enough to exhaust the laptop battery.

Software: Basically smstools.  It runs as a daemon, and you can specify 
a handler to be notified on every event, whitelist certain numbers, 
etc.  However, if you want to ssh into the box, you'll have to shut down 
smsd before starting pppd since both require exclusive access - you need 
two operating modes and a reliable switch-over mechanism.  I have 
scripts for doing this if anybody is interested.

Regards,

Ronan