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Wow, I've been waiting for this topic to show up for, what, six years now? :)

What you want is a Davis Instruments station. These stations hook up, via serial cable, to any PC. If you're running some form of *nix, I highly recommend the Device::WxM2 Perl module. I've written various collection daemons that use WxM2 to pull weather data from the station and store it in RRD format or in a PostgreSQL database. I even wrote an AGI script that allows people calling my Asterisk PBX to hear the latest weather data. I also wrote a handy widget for Konfabulator that lets you watch the weather on your Mac/PC desktop in real-time.

Shameless plug: if you decide that the Davis station is right for you, stop by my employer's website, where we have a variety of Davis Instruments choices.

One word of advice: we sell cheaper stations than the Davis models but if you are planning on putting this up on a roof and leaving it for 5+ years, you really want to go with a quality peice of equipment, not a Radio Shack toy that will disintegrate after a year in the sun.

Questions? Ask and I'll be glad to answer.

Chris

Wow, I've been waiting for this topic to show up for, what, six years now? :)

What you want is a Davis Instruments station. These stations hook up, via serial cable, to any PC. If you're running some form of *nix, I highly recommend the Device::WxM2 Perl module. I've written various collection daemons that use WxM2 to pull weather data from the station and store it in RRD format or in a PostgreSQL database. I even wrote an AGI script that allows people calling my Asterisk PBX to hear the latest weather data. I also wrote a handy widget for Konfabulator that lets you watch the weather on your Mac/PC desktop in real-time.

Shameless plug: if you decide that the Davis station is right for you, stop by my employer's website, where we have a variety of Davis Instruments choices.

One word of advice: we sell cheaper stations than the Davis models but if you are planning on putting this up on a roof and leaving it for 5+ years, you really want to go with a quality peice of equipment, not a Radio Shack toy that will disintegrate after a year in the sun.

Questions? Ask and I'll be glad to answer.

Chris

You can get a lot more than room temperature monitoring, if you want. I use a Davis Instruments weather station to monitor server room temperature as well as outside temperature, wind speed+direction, humidity, barometer, etc.

I use the Davis Weather Monitor II station, which can be picked up for about $350. Controlling the station from *NIX couldn't be more simple. I use the Device::WxM2 Perl module to pull data from my station. I wrote a small daemon that stores the data in RRDtool data files, as well as Perl Storables (a representation of a Perl data structure stored in a file). Another daemon monitors the current readings from the storables and sends e-mail to my pager if things go awry.

I even wrote an Asterisk AGI that speaks the weather to the caller. Call 1-866-859-7359 for a demo.

You can get a lot more than room temperature monitoring, if you want. I use a Davis Instruments weather station to monitor server room temperature as well as outside temperature, wind speed+direction, humidity, barometer, etc.

I use the Davis Weather Monitor II station, which can be picked up for about $350. Controlling the station from *NIX couldn't be more simple. I use the Device::WxM2 Perl module to pull data from my station. I wrote a small daemon that stores the data in RRDtool data files, as well as Perl Storables (a representation of a Perl data structure stored in a file). Another daemon monitors the current readings from the storables and sends e-mail to my pager if things go awry.

I even wrote an Asterisk AGI that speaks the weather to the caller. Call 1-866-859-7359 for a demo.

I did a similar setup recently for my father's bicycle stores and here is a photo gallery of the results. I have an aversion to Linksys (their tech support is horrible) and so I became a D-Link convert a few months back. We bought eight DWL-2000AP access points/bridges (you can select the mode via the web interface) and eight of their DWL-P100 Power-over-Ethernet kits. We linked our warehouses to our stores via 24dBi grids (from hyperlinktech.com) and, like you, placed our APs on the mast underneath the antennae. For our enclosures, I chose some inexpensive but very well-made Davis Instruments enclosures. They are NEMA-4 rated and are sealed against the elements. We're a dealer for Davis so we got them really cheap. Being in South Texas, I was concerned about heat in the boxes so I built custom heat shields, which fit around the NEMA enclosures. I built these from R-Matte (which looks like foam plywood) and foil tape. I also used the foil tape to turn cheap-o indoor grade CAT5e into psuedo-outdoor grade cable.

Chris

I'm glad they are at least thinking about how to make the PDA less of a hassle to carry around. I think Oregon Scientific have the right idea with this one. Once you can carry a PDA w/o the obnoxious bulge in your pants they will finally be usable by normal people and not geeks. They need to basically disappear into your clothing to make them really useful.

[note: obviously, this is just MHO and entirely speculative]

1) The PDA market is stagnant. Most everybody who was going to buy a PDA has already bought one. PDAs aren't deprecated as quickly as PCs and its not uncommon to keep one for two or three years. (I still have and use my originial Pilot).

2) PDA prices have fallen through the floor. You can buy a pocket organizer with functionality that's equivalent to a Franklin Day Planner for about $100. I would guess that an Apple PDA would cost around $300-400, more than most every PDA on the market.

3) The grass is greener elsewhere. The iMac has been hugely profitable for them and the demand for these is strong. If they were to introduce a next-gen iMac (with LCD, etc), they would most likely hit a home run.

4) Apple has always been an innovator. PDAs are not new. I don't see a lot of room for innovation with them. Recall the Newton. That was an Apple innovation. Nobody had ever really seen a PDA before the Newton. Why would Apple, who abandoned the Newton at the start of the PDA boom, go back to handhelds?

5) Apple has no true rackmount server offering. If I had to bet, I think we'll see a (relatively) low-cost 1U G4 server that will come in somewhere around $1800-$2000 retail. Who knows...we might even see a 4-way server, as well. (okay, that was wishful thinking, but still...)

You could get a wireless, solar-powered weather station for your roof. Then you could get some UNIX-based software and MRTG and put some graphs of your station online.