Launch site weather station with cell phone call-up?

Anyone know of a reasonably priced weather station with a no-contract, pay-per-text cell phone call-up capability?

Winston said:

Anyone know of a reasonably priced weather station with a no-contract, pay-per-text cell phone call-up capability?

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No! but I've been Building and using on-site weather stations since beginning in the hobby in the early 60's.

Have to admit the first 4 photos are of my for fun station used mostly at BSA camp-outs. While not all that scientific it can be pretty accurate
The others are stations i've been using to log on-site weather data for decades. They Work and work well.
Today there are plenty of NWS apps for just about anyones Cell phone... I do own or use a Cell Phone nor want one.

Winston said:

Anyone know of a reasonably priced weather station with a no-contract, pay-per-text cell phone call-up capability?

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Why do you need to involve the cell phone? I'm not sure there are any weather stations like you describe. If you're near the personal weather station, check it's readout, if you're somewhere else, use your weather app. Is there some specific purpose or location you need?

Check out some of these https://www.ambientweather.com/peorhowest.html You can get ones that have instruments mounted, or hand held/portable units.

Handeman said:

Why do you need to involve the cell phone? I'm not sure there are any weather stations like you describe. If you're near the personal weather station, check it's readout, if you're somewhere else, use your weather app. Is there some specific purpose or location you need?

Check out some of these https://www.ambientweather.com/peorhowest.html You can get ones that have instruments mounted, or hand held/portable units.

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Our RC field has a Weather Underground volunteer network weather station plenty close enough to give an accurate idea of conditions. Not so for our much more remote rocket launch site.

Actually, in the vast majority of cases for those with hobbies related to things that fly, wind speed and gust data would be the only data required with precipitation detection occasionally being useful. Although a flying field might be distant enough to make its local wind and gust readings important, it wouldn't typically be distant enough to present a radically different temperature.

A cheap, no-contract Android cell phone with data capability and connectivity and an Android app that would take and send a photo when the phone is called could take and send a photo of the LCD display of a remote weather system. If that's possible to do, that sort of app would be more generally useful for home security, so I wonder if one or more already exist. Such a method is a workaround that wouldn't require any electronic communication between the phone and any weather system readout with an LCD display, which is most of them. A small photo-voltaic panel would be adequate to keep the phone charged.

If you are looking for current weather at some location, you could probably get information from a local airport. Around here there is an airport weather station every 20 miles or so.
Start here for a map of the area.

https://skyvector.com/

Then here to get the airport info.

https://www.airnav.com/airports/

enter in the identifier/name of airport in the search box. This will list the info for the airport.
Under "Airport Communications" there should be a phone number for the weather station. (ASOS or AWOS) Automatic Surface Observation System or Automatic Weather Observation System.
Give the number a call and listen to the computer talk about the weather.
The automatic system updates every minute.
There are also lots of pilot aps that can get the airport weather too.

Airobert said:

If you are looking for current weather at some location, you could probably get information from a local airport. Around here there is an airport weather station every 20 miles or so.

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No airport even remotely close enough to the launch site in a region with terrain that makes highly localized readings mandatory for any kind of accuracy whatsoever. If this was Kansas or Nebraska, that wouldn't be an issue.

I still don't quite understand why you need the remote access. Local or regional weather forecasts should be able to give you plenty of information to judge if flying is even possible and if the trip our is worth your while. Once there, a local station can give you more details.

Either of those probably won't help much with rockets. What I've found to be most helpful is the 'winds aloft" forecast. Those are regional and not affected by terrain much, at least here on the east coast.

If you want remote access to a weather station, I would recommend one that can post to a website. You would have to supply some type of connectivity, cell phone, dial up, etc. and a website it could post to, but then you would have your information available at any web enabled device. I have no idea if a low cost system is available.

Handeman said:

If you want remote access to a weather station, I would recommend one that can post to a website. You would have to supply some type of connectivity, cell phone, dial up, etc. and a website it could post to, but then you would have your information available at any web enabled device. I have no idea if a low cost system is available.

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That would work, but would be much more complex and costly to implement than the photo technique I mentioned earlier. A weather system LCD in the launch site storage shed displays local data, but is obviously of no use until after arrival. I just found the remote photo taking app that could be used to take a photo of the display and send it via cell connection. There may be others:

Android Lost

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.androidlost&hl=en

Among the features:

* take picture with front camera
* take picture with rear camera

Review:

Android Lost – The BEST Lost Phone Finder

https://droid.usedavesvoice.com/android-lost-the-best-lost-phone-finder/

Winston said:

Our RC field has a Weather Underground volunteer network weather station plenty close enough to give an accurate idea of conditions. Not so for our much more remote rocket launch site.

Actually, in the vast majority of cases for those with hobbies related to things that fly, wind speed and gust data would be the only data required with precipitation detection occasionally being useful.

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What about this??....

https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/weather/asos/

... or, even, this??....

https://www.griffin.uga.edu/aemn/

(this, obviously, for GA - but I would bet a search would reveal something similar for other states)

-- john.