So even on an old and out-of-date MacBook running Mojave, WeatherCat 4.0 Beta is just purring along!   

 

Dear Stu and Weather

. . .
So my very own ECOWITT Wittboy Pro Weather Station HP2564  is arriving on Sunday.  I'm going to try to run WeatherCat 4.x on the laptop I use to tune my trusty wagon so that I don't have to risk my Mac Mini which kind of runs the house.
. . . .

As promised the station arrived just before the start of the work week and it is a cute little machine.  Here is a close-up of the sensor array:



Here is the array on the mast which Biquette brought home (another story to be reported later . . . . )



Here is a comparison of the console with the old-reliable Davis Vantage Pro-2 console:



In comparison the Davis console definitely looks a bit out of date:

Looking at the manual for that one Edouard, I do not see that it has a local API which WeatherCat could access (happy to be corrected if someone has more 'Ecowitt' knowledge )

A quick search brings up https://meshka.eu/Ecowitt/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=start#apis_application_programming_interfaces - there's a list of what does and doesn't have a local API there. It appears it doesn't.

  . . . . Bummer dude!  Is this one of those - you've gotta read da' instructions sorta' things? . . . . 

[Edit: Thinking about what you're doing, I'd be inclined to throw a GW3000 into the mix - these can be picked up on places like Amazon at reasonable prices. The GW-3000 does have the local API and is fine with WeatherCat. Fit it with an 8GB SDCard and get the WS90 registered with that, then when you open your laptop, WeatherCat will pull down the historical data from the GW3000 then resume real-time operation.]

  . . . . Alright, Alright . . . . Since I got such a good deal on the console, why not add the GW3000 to the mix!  . . . 

These little hubs are very cute in their own right:



They transmit directly to an iOS App, so you could install one of these GW3000 hubs and save some of that precious RV real estate and lookup either a quick update with your phone or tablet or get more detailed information using WeatherCat.

Speaking of which:



So even on an old and out-of-date MacBook running Mojave, WeatherCat 4.0 Beta is just purring along!   

One other observation - you're going to need wifi in your van so that both WeatherCat and the Ecowitt are on the same network - something to consider.

Actually this problem is already solved.  I was strongly urged to go with SpaceX Starlink.  I already have the Starlink mini antenna so that's my venue for Internet and it includes it's own IP-router and Wi-Fi.

What I'm going to do with this weather station is more murky.  My worry was that I would end up RVing in extreme conditions and wanted to know how cold things got in case pipes were in peril of freezing - or something similar.

However, this journey is just started so - stay tuned!

Edouard   

I'm currently running Weather Display on an old Intel MacMini via Keyspan USB adapter.  I've split the RS232 stream to run one side into a StarTech USB adapter to an M1 MacMini with the Prolific driver.  WeatherCat setup IDs the port, but fails to see the Station.  I see in the WC setup that the VP2 Console's Forecast Ticker should not be running, but there is no information in the Davis manual on how to turn it off.  Is this possibly a problem with the Startech adapters?  (Yes, I've removed the rs232 splitter and got the same results.).

I wouldn't have known if not for your post report. No one let us know over on the WXForums, which I check every day. I just posted an update to Reinhard's thread over there so anyone else in the dark will know.

Hey! Nobody told me we were back! I didn't know until John marked a post as spam. Thanks for that, John.

And look, a new version to fiddle with! I will be of limited value, as my station is not performing well. My newish anemometer is kaput, and I'm not keen to buy yet another. Correct rain reporting is intermittent, too. I replaces the supercap, battery, and solar cover last summer, but I'm thinking the board might be the problem. At that point, is it worth fixing, just replace entirely, or use Apple weather. 

It is good to see some activity here,
Steve