Hello from DC!

[Sam Triche]

An intro although I’ve been lurking for several months but never requested an account. I’m a government employee in the Washington, DC area and will be retiring later this fall. My wife and I recently bought slightly over a half-section of land in southwestern Virginia … a combination of meadowland, mature forest, a river branch and, a spring-fed four-acre pond. Also a 1940s farmhouse and a newer, well-maintained horse barn.

We’ll be tearing down the farmhouse and breaking ground on a new build this month. The objective is to sell our existing house and move into the new house NLT Thanksgiving.

Based on info I’ve gleaned from this site and a couple of others, I decided on a Davis Instruments Weather Station so I can monitor the weather on the site from afar (~300 miles) until we actually retire and relocate. And, of course, it will continue to be used as an interesting hobby after we move.

Equipment purchased thus far: Wireless 6163 VP2+ with fan, leaf wetness, soil temp, soil moisture, WeatherLink Live 6100 hub.

I’ve made friends with a neighbor who’s a Ham radio operator with a 75-foot guyed tower. As soon as I decide where to place the anemometer pole, he’s happy to help put it up.

Initially, I’ll just put the WLL hub in the tack room, connect to the internet, and access data on my iMac in DC (or my iPhone). Eventually will move the gear into the new house.

Still trying to decide whether there’s any real benefit to be gained by installing WeatherCat on the iMac (Intel Quad-Core i7, OS Monterey 12.2) rather than just accessing the Davis WLL website via Safari. Thus the reason for joining, make me smart here on WeatherCat. What am I getting by accessing the Davis 6100 WLL hub with WeatherCat as opposed to merely accessing the Davis website via Safari (or any other browser)?

Quite frankly, I’m not interested in uploading my weather data and/or webcam video to Weather Underground, CWOP, etc.

Thanks,

Sam

[elagache]

Dear Sam and WeatherCat welcome wagon,

An intro although I’ve been lurking for several months but never requested an account.

So let me be the first to welcome you to the WeatherCat forum! 

I’m a government employee in the Washington, DC area and will be retiring later this fall. My wife and I recently bought slightly over a half-section of land in southwestern Virginia … a combination of meadowland, mature forest, a river branch and, a spring-fed four-acre pond. Also a 1940s farmhouse and a newer, well-maintained horse barn.

We’ll be tearing down the farmhouse and breaking ground on a new build this month. The objective is to sell our existing house and move into the new house NLT Thanksgiving.

Congratulations!  Sounds like a wonderful project and a great way to create a retirement nest!

Based on info I’ve gleaned from this site and a couple of others, I decided on a Davis Instruments Weather Station so I can monitor the weather on the site from afar (~300 miles) until we actually retire and relocate. And, of course, it will continue to be used as an interesting hobby after we move.

Equipment purchased thus far: Wireless 6163 VP2+ with fan, leaf wetness, soil temp, soil moisture, WeatherLink Live 6100 hub.

I’ve made friends with a neighbor who’s a Ham radio operator with a 75-foot guyed tower. As soon as I decide where to place the anemometer pole, he’s happy to help put it up.

Initially, I’ll just put the WLL hub in the tack room, connect to the internet, and access data on my iMac in DC (or my iPhone). Eventually will move the gear into the new house.

Still trying to decide whether there’s any real benefit to be gained by installing WeatherCat on the iMac (Intel Quad-Core i7, OS Monterey 12.2) rather than just accessing the Davis WLL website via Safari. Thus the reason for joining, make me smart here on WeatherCat. What am I getting by accessing the Davis 6100 WLL hub with WeatherCat as opposed to merely accessing the Davis website via Safari (or any other browser)?

Quite frankly, I’m not interested in uploading my weather data and/or webcam video to Weather Underground, CWOP, etc.

At the moment, WeatherCat has only limited support for WeatherLink Live.  Information on the development build can be found here:

https://athena.trixology.com/index.php?topic=3264.0

However, a number of users are already taking advantage of it.  It does require access to the weather station hardware.  So you couldn't take advantage of WeatherCat until you relocate.

It is hard to answer your question of exactly what would you get out of WeatherCat that you wouldn't already have access to via the Davis web interface.  I'm not familiar with what Davis provides so I can't answer your question.  I can tell you that I find WeatherCat indispensable in planning my activities and caring for the household.  For example I have a synthetic channel that allows me to decide when to open and close windows to cool off the house.  I don't think WeatherLink Live would allow for that sort of functionality.

I use WeatherCat data archive extensively to assess what is the situation with respect to the chronic California drought situation.  You will need to collect data to make that useful and once more it isn't clear that the online services of Davis will be all that different.  The graphing and custom gauges of WeatherCat will certainly make any web interface pale into insignificance.  I use the Custom Text Windows feature to highlight data that is important to me.  For example, I have a Custom Text Window with the important parameters of a storm.  At a glance I can determine if flooding is likely to be a problem of if the winds are likely to do damage to the property.

Unfortunately, I think it will boil down to having time to explore WeatherCat and discover its functionality.  Since you wouldn't be able use WeatherCat until you move, have you thought about purchasing an inexpensive weather station that you could install provisionally at your present residence to give WeatherCat a "test spin?"

The Oregon Scientific WMR 200 appears to be discontinued but can still be found a large discounts at venues like eBay.  You might be able to locate a used Fine Offset WH1080 since these were made under a wide variety of names.  There is more information on this model on the WeatherCat Wiki.   The Netatmo station is another possibility if you can get one of these at a bargain price.

I hope this is giving you some "food for thought."  It is hard to describe what you might do with WeatherCat, so perhaps the best I can suggest is for you to ask some more questions and get a sense of how other WeatherCat users take advantage of what this software has to offer.

Cheers, Edouard

[Blicj11]

Welcome to the forum.

WeatherCat gives you access to all your data without requiring an ongoing subscription with Davis. With the Cat its easy to see and curate historical data, setup a wonderful second display for your current and historical weather data, set up a basic or custom weather website much cooler than WeatherLink Live, and back up your weather data files. But the biggest advantage may well be what you learn from the members of this forum when you need a little help in resolving an issue, or sometimes learning stuff that has nothing to do with hardware and software, but just fun.

Best of luck with all your retiring and building plans - and thanks for your service in DC.

[Sam Triche]

Thanks, Edouard


I didn't realize the development version of WeatherCat needed to be on the local network to access the 6100 WeatherLink Live hub. So I guess in the near term, I'll just monitor the weather via the Davis cloud on my iOS or Mac OS devices until we move.


The house we are building will be a "smart" house, including the yard and flower bed irrigation systems. That's the reason I've purchased ground temp, ground moisture, and leaf wetness sensors to augment the ISS. I just haven't yet decided what will be run via commercial products and what I want to 'tinker' with myself.


I will say though, I've paid close attention to the posts about the WeatherCat software being an after-hours project for a one-man-band. If I'm running the house and my wife's flower beds on software when the developer disappears for extended periods without so much as a short update, that gives me pause. Should I consider it hobby software?


Sam

[Sam Triche]

Thanks, Blick. You've certainly given me some things to consider.


Sam

[elagache]

Dear Sam, Blick, and WeatherCat faithful,

I didn't realize the development version of WeatherCat needed to be on the local network to access the 6100 WeatherLink Live hub. So I guess in the near term, I'll just monitor the weather via the Davis cloud on my iOS or Mac OS devices until we move.
. . . .

That is the current limitation of the beta software.  It makes more sense because of the Davis subscription model to support that first.  However, this could change in the future.  Nonetheless, I think it is likely that for the vast majority of WeatherCat users, direct connection to your station will always be preferable. 

The house we are building will be a "smart" house, including the yard and flower bed irrigation systems. That's the reason I've purchased ground temp, ground moisture, and leaf wetness sensors to augment the ISS. I just haven't yet decided what will be run via commercial products and what I want to 'tinker' with myself.

Interesting!  Are you planning to install "smart" irrigation systems and if so have you located products that can also communicate with a Davis station?  I have looked into this from time to time, but sadly, California isn't a very practical place for smart irrigation since water rationing is a ever-present threat.

I will say though, I've paid close attention to the posts about the WeatherCat software being an after-hours project for a one-man-band. If I'm running the house and my wife's flower beds on software when the developer disappears for extended periods without so much as a short update, that gives me pause. Should I consider it hobby software?

Sadly, our fearless leader (Stuart Ball, WeatherCat developer) has been mostly a victim of changing times.  In the past, he has had ample time to take care of his day-job, personal needs, and WeatherCat.  Just take a look at the WeatherCat change log to see how much work has gone into WeatherCat since May of 2012:

https://athena.trixology.com/index.php?board=14.0

Stu is continuing to try to recover from the nasty mix of Brexit and COVID on the British economic situation.  All indications are that things should be getting back to normal, but as I'm sure you have also noticed - we live in very uncertain times.  So my frequently prescribed call for patience remains solid advice.

To some extent, you need to have a requirement for WeatherCat unique functionality to be willing to take on the learning curve.  For example, if you want to use your Mac to do some of your home automation, WeatherCat has an AppleScript capability to serve as "glue" between your weather data and your home automation technology.  This could be essential if you cannot find a "turn key" solution for integrating weather into your smart-home.  On the other hand, if you are happy with the tools you have already uncovered, perhaps those tools are good enough and at least for the moment you can live without the additional functionality of WeatherCat.

I hope that's a useful way to think about it.

Edouard