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Author Topic: Ham radio shied to link Arduino weather station to classroom  (Read 16004 times)

AF7JA

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Ham radio shied to link Arduino weather station to classroom
« on: April 03, 2018, 04:52:31 PM »

I was thinking of a project for some of my more advanced students. I would like to send weather information from an Arduino based weather station to the classroom where the data would be placed into an Excel file. I was looking at this QRP shield, I realize that there are other ham radio shields, I am not set on any individual one at this point.

Here is my question. What ham radio information do I have to transmit with the weather information and what format does it have to be in?

Can I just include my call-sign with the serial data? Will having the transmitter randomly send my call-sign in Morse code be needed (not really random, at the end of each sending of information). I can see this working better outside of amateur radio bands. However,I am trying to decide on the basics at this point. I don't see many remote control toys around here so I do realize that I may be better off planning to use a hobbyist/experimenter band instead of Amateur radio (here is another example of hobbyist wireless, there are a lot of ways, or just use wi-fi); at the present I am just working on ideas and feasibility.

My concern here is how/can I do this legally.
« Last Edit: April 03, 2018, 05:11:14 PM by AF7JA »
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VK4HAT

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RE: Ham radio shied to link Arduino weather station to classroom
« Reply #1 on: April 03, 2018, 05:17:16 PM »

Wifi, Ethernet, LORA, other radio transmitter receiver combos. Why does it even need to be ham radio. There are ISM and LIPD bands where anyone can run 100mw and do pretty much whatever they like and a myriad of modules that are more or less plug and play if you can find working libraries for them.

The most simple solution would be to use ESP8266 and hook straight into the schools WIFI and use a database to store the data. This is what i have done for my own weather station. Weather station is right outside my window, battery and solar powered, connects to my wifi to save the data on my server hosted in the USA.

Code: http://vk4ffab.info/2018/02/27/weather-statio-code/

Station: http://vk4ffab.info/2017/12/25/vk4ffab-weather-station/

Data: http://vk4ffab.info/2018/01/31/january-weather-data/

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AF7JA

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RE: Ham radio shied to link Arduino weather station to classroom
« Reply #2 on: April 04, 2018, 04:15:23 AM »

Wifi, Ethernet, LORA, other radio transmitter receiver combos. Why does it even need to be ham radio.

First off, thanks for the other information about setting up a station. As far as your question, "Why does it even need to be ham radio." It doesn't. Like I mentioned, there are several good hobbyist/experimenter bands that are probably much better suited to what I want to do.

WiFi is certainly one option, the links I put in are some examples of others. In my case WiFi is unnecessarily complicated due to district rules (teachers and students are not permitted to use the schools WiFi). However, as my links showed, there are still other ways.

Unfortunately, Ham radio probably isn't going to work for this application. I still wanted to give it a fair hearing before entirely rejecting it.
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VK4HAT

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RE: Ham radio shied to link Arduino weather station to classroom
« Reply #3 on: April 04, 2018, 03:06:31 PM »

Wifi, Ethernet, LORA, other radio transmitter receiver combos. Why does it even need to be ham radio.

First off, thanks for the other information about setting up a station. As far as your question, "Why does it even need to be ham radio." It doesn't. Like I mentioned, there are several good hobbyist/experimenter bands that are probably much better suited to what I want to do.

WiFi is certainly one option, the links I put in are some examples of others. In my case WiFi is unnecessarily complicated due to district rules (teachers and students are not permitted to use the schools WiFi). However, as my links showed, there are still other ways.

Unfortunately, Ham radio probably isn't going to work for this application. I still wanted to give it a fair hearing before entirely rejecting it.

LOL what do you mean teachers and students cannot use the wifi? whats the point of wifi if no one is allowed to use it? Dont matter, you can use ESP8266 to setup an network outside the schools wifi. Having used just about all the other modules on the market, the 2 easiest ones to setup and do anything with are LORA which is overkill in this case and WIFI using ESP32 and 8266. There are many benefits to using WIFI, students can access the weatherstation via a browser and get the latest weather data using a browser as the ESP micro's can be used as a web server etc, it just requires the addition of an sd card, which means you can then also save the data in CSV among other things.



No matter what you decide, have fun with the project.
« Last Edit: April 04, 2018, 03:16:47 PM by VK4FFAB »
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KB8JXO

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RE: Ham radio shied to link Arduino weather station to classroom
« Reply #4 on: April 08, 2018, 06:21:36 PM »

What about the remote control frequencies in the 6 meter band (53.5, 53.6, 53.7, 53.8)? There are already small low power commercial transmitters and receivers available which could save some "endgansneering" time.
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VK4HAT

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RE: Ham radio shied to link Arduino weather station to classroom
« Reply #5 on: April 09, 2018, 02:14:39 AM »

What about the remote control frequencies in the 6 meter band (53.5, 53.6, 53.7, 53.8)? There are already small low power commercial transmitters and receivers available which could save some "endgansneering" time.

The problem with rolling your own solution is that you also need to code the data transmission protocols from scratch and depending on how skilled you are with code, it might not be very trivial. When you start looking at bang for buck, modules like LORA are great, 500m range is typical, they draw very little current, they have ok data rates and all the hard stuff has been taken care of in the libraries written by smarter people than me LOL. Just buy the modules for the LIPD/ISM bands in your region, connect a few wired and write a few lines of code and you are done.
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AD5GH

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RE: Ham radio shied to link Arduino weather station to classroom
« Reply #6 on: April 10, 2018, 08:53:19 AM »

I have used LoRa radios for a similar project that posts the weather data to the cloud using Google Sheets. The building blocks are in the code to make a simpler, basic set up work.
https://www.instructables.com/id/LoRa-IOT-Home-Environment-Monitoring-System/

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KG4RUL

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RE: Ham radio shied to link Arduino weather station to classroom
« Reply #7 on: April 10, 2018, 01:46:55 PM »

If your intent is to demonstrate uses for amateur radio, then by all means use it.  If it is just to get data from A to B, then the other solutions suggested will suffice. 

I have a weather station that uses a HobbyPCB, Arduino compatible transceiver board operating in the 1.25M band that communicates with another of the boards.  An Arduino ProMini board is at the weather station end attached to the transceiver board.  The other end is an Arduino UNO board attached to the receiving transceiver board.  The user interface is via a serial port of the Arduino to a terminal program running on a WIN7 computer.  Just a simple text based display but it does the job.
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W1VT

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RE: Ham radio shied to link Arduino weather station to classroom
« Reply #8 on: April 10, 2018, 04:36:31 PM »

What about the remote control frequencies in the 6 meter band (53.5, 53.6, 53.7, 53.8)? There are already small low power commercial transmitters and receivers available which could save some "endgansneering" time.

A decade ago 6M RC had already fallen into the "special order" category.  You could special order 6M versions of RC equipment from the major manufacturers.  These days you may need to buy used gear and have the technical ability to make it work properly.
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AF7JA

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RE: Ham radio shied to link Arduino weather station to classroom
« Reply #9 on: April 15, 2018, 06:22:12 AM »

If your intent is to demonstrate uses for amateur radio, then by all means use it.  If it is just to get data from A to B, then the other solutions suggested will suffice. 

I have a weather station that uses a HobbyPCB, Arduino compatible transceiver board operating in the 1.25M band that communicates with another of the boards.  An Arduino ProMini board is at the weather station end attached to the transceiver board.  The other end is an Arduino UNO board attached to the receiving transceiver board.  The user interface is via a serial port of the Arduino to a terminal program running on a WIN7 computer.  Just a simple text based display but it does the job.

COuld you include a bit more detail?

As much detail as is possible. As far as the question about the wifi at this school, it is used to support the chromebook carts and the district issued laptops. Students and teachers are not allowed to use their own devices with it.
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KG4RUL

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RE: Ham radio shied to link Arduino weather station to classroom
« Reply #10 on: April 15, 2018, 02:25:44 PM »

I am assuming from your response that you wish to use amateur radio as a teaching tool.  What detail are you looking for?  Hardware choices? Code? ???
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VK4HAT

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RE: Ham radio shied to link Arduino weather station to classroom
« Reply #11 on: April 15, 2018, 03:39:26 PM »

If your intent is to demonstrate uses for amateur radio, then by all means use it.  If it is just to get data from A to B, then the other solutions suggested will suffice. 

I have a weather station that uses a HobbyPCB, Arduino compatible transceiver board operating in the 1.25M band that communicates with another of the boards.  An Arduino ProMini board is at the weather station end attached to the transceiver board.  The other end is an Arduino UNO board attached to the receiving transceiver board.  The user interface is via a serial port of the Arduino to a terminal program running on a WIN7 computer.  Just a simple text based display but it does the job.

COuld you include a bit more detail?

As much detail as is possible. As far as the question about the wifi at this school, it is used to support the chromebook carts and the district issued laptops. Students and teachers are not allowed to use their own devices with it.

Starting from the beginning, how far will the station be away from the classroom, will it have direct line of sight etc. All the modules on the market have range limits, NRF24 are 2.4gig have a range of about 10m, the rf modules that operate at 314 or 433 mhz have a range of about 30m and the LORA modules operating on 433 or 900 and something in the US, will give you about 300m. And WIFI from an ESP32 will give you about 20m.

Out of all these, the easiest to setup and configure would be the ESP32, with a data logger shield to give a real time clock and an sd card, setup as a standalone network gateway and webserver, you would just have to connect to its network, point a browser at it to display current measurement data or download the entire data set.

Of the others LORA would be the most practical for setting up a transmitter and receiver kind of weather station, good if you want to have current data on display in the classroom on an LCD.

Of all of these the one i would avoid are the NRF modules, they are painful to work with.

https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/NRF24L01-2-4GHz-Antenna-Wireless-Transceiver-Module-For-Arduino-Microcontrolle-r/232381022630?epid=2170699532&hash=item361afd01a6:g:CDQAAOSw6ShZSi30

https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/1-5PCS-315-433-Mhz-RF-Transmitter-Receiver-Wireless-Module-Arduino-ARMMCU-NEW/263484696707?hash=item3d58e96883:m:mVS9w0hh0_83K7QVhWHnd_Q

https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/433-LoRa-SX1278-Long-Range-RF-Wireless-Transceivr-Module-SX1276-5Km-For-Arduino/183152034241?epid=580003845&hash=item2aa4b641c1:g:jxMAAOSwyHRavI~d

https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/2-4GHz-Dual-Mode-ESP32S-ESP32-CH340G-Development-WiFi-Bluetooth-Module-Antenna/192294836904?hash=item2cc5aa5aa8:g:yFwAAOSwI59Z9YZB
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KJ4HVL

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RE: Ham radio shied to link Arduino weather station to classroom
« Reply #12 on: May 02, 2018, 06:50:44 AM »

Get an ISM 433 transmitter and send APRS over it (if you want to demonstrate protocol encoding), otherwise, there are 433M wireless serial dongles with their own proprietary protocol, use them.
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K0BT

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RE: Ham radio shied to link Arduino weather station to classroom
« Reply #13 on: May 05, 2018, 05:11:40 PM »

How about using an ESP32 module?  The built-in Wi-Fi might provide what you need.  You can always setup a spare router and not connect it to the internet or the school network if security is a concern.
« Last Edit: May 05, 2018, 05:14:49 PM by K0BT »
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AF7JA

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RE: Ham radio shied to link Arduino weather station to classroom
« Reply #14 on: May 09, 2018, 04:25:36 AM »

I am assuming from your response that you wish to use amateur radio as a teaching tool.  What detail are you looking for?  Hardware choices? Code? ???

The radio is more of the means than the ends. What I want to do is get the information from the weather station to the classroom. I was simply trying to give amateur radio a fair hearing.

I think the best way, considering network policies, is to use a hobby band instead.

The way it looks is that I will keep sending in for a particular science grant and go with commercial gear. I only missed the grant this year because I missed the deadline.

The trouble with a "Maker" solution is that I have to be able to guarantee that it will work as specified with no tinkering. I also will not be permitted to install it. The installation will be done by the maintenance department. The result of that is that there is no working out an optimal position. It will go where maintenance wants to put it. All of this makes a "maker" solution a poor choice.

A bit of a shame, I wanted to involve the students a bit more; but that won't work. The unit I am now looking at uses a hobby band and allows multiple heads. Multiple heads will allow a head to be in the science classrooms and in my classroom. It is a better fit; there is just less "learning."
« Last Edit: May 09, 2018, 04:27:49 AM by AF7JA »
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