Upgrade my weatherstation to WeeWX 5
![](/posts/2024/66-upgrade-my-weatherstation-to-weewx-5/wx-station-feature_hu4110259942785413411.jpg)
Table of Contents
I moved the weatherstation software again to another computer, this time a virtual one – that means one Raspberry Pi less on the windowsill.
The installation process is also covered in the 5.0 docs.
Creating the virtual environment #
$ sudo pacman -S python-pip
$ python -m venv ~/weewx-venv
$ source ~/weewx-venv/bin/activate
$ python -m pip install weewx
The installation is complete, let’s create the station. I like doing upgrades “from scratch” because I can use an up-to-date configuration file – although it is more work to add the old changes to the new file.
Create the new station #
$ weectl station create took 8s via 🐍 v3.12.3 weewx-venv
Follow the instructions on the command line. Edit the freshly created configuration file.
$ nvim ~/weewx-data/weewx.conf
Including my old settings and add the GW1000 configuration for the plugin that I will soon install.
Installing the extensions #
Do this within the virtual environment!
Install the GW1000 driver:
$ weectl extension install https://github.com/gjr80/weewx-gw1000/releases/latest/download/gw1000.zip
Install the WDC theme:
$ wget -O "/tmp/weewx-wdc.zip" https://github.com/Daveiano/weewx-wdc/releases/download/v3.5.1/weewx-wdc-v3.5.1.zip
$ mkdir /tmp/weewx-wdc/
$ unzip /tmp/weewx-wdc.zip -d /tmp/weewx-wdc/
$ weectl extension install -y /tmp/weewx-wdc/
Install the XAGGS extension:
$ weectl extension install https://github.com/tkeffer/weewx-xaggs/archive/master.zip
Install forecast plugin:
$ wget https://github.com/chaunceygardiner/weewx-forecast/releases/download/v3.4.0b12/weewx-forecast-3.4.0b12.zip
$ weectl extension install weewx-forecast-3.4.0b12.zip
Install the OpenWeatherMap extension:
$ wget -O weewx-owm.zip https://github.com/matthewwall/weewx-owm/archive/master.zip
$ weectl extension install weewx-owm.zip
Install Systemd and udev files #
$ sudo sh ~/weewx-data/scripts/setup-daemon.sh
My installation died everyday at 5 AM and so I modified the systemd files
at the [Service]
section:
--- weewx.service 2024-06-13 21:13:50.115021718 +0200
+++ /etc/systemd/system/weewx.service 2024-06-11 05:22:43.224222604 +0200
@@ -12,6 +12,8 @@
ExecStart=/home/dominic/weewx-venv/bin/python /home/dominic/weewx-venv/lib/python3.12/site-packages/weewxd.py /home/dominic/weewx-data/weewx.conf
StandardOutput=null
StandardError=journal+console
+RestartSec=60
+Restart=on-failure
User=dominic
Group=dominic
Adopt the configuration files #
Again, to include the latest changes and themes.
$ nvim ~/weewx-data/weewx.conf
$ nvim ~/weewx-data/skins/weewx-wdc/skin.conf
Start WeeWX and test the configuration:
$ weewxd
If everything runs without problems we can now enable and start the Systemd service.
$ sudo systemctl enable weewx.service
I like to test it with a full reboot, if you just want to start the
daemon right away you can also run sudo systemctl enable --now weewx.service
instead.
Register the station on OpenWeatherMap #
After creating an API key (which I already have because of the
forecast plugin that I use already) we can register our new
station on the command line with curl
.
$ curl --header "Content-Type: application/json" --request POST \
--data '{"external_id": "LGFD_OE7DRT","name": "OE7DRT-13, Laengenfeld, Tirol, Austria","latitude": 47.07321210625363, "longitude": 10.974540559888204, "altitude": 1202}' \
"http://api.openweathermap.org/data/3.0/stations?appid={APIKEY}"
That should give you something like this (probably without linebreaks!):
{
"ID": "${STATION_ID}",
"updated_at": "2024-06-23T07:40:47.276754274Z",
"created_at": "2024-06-23T07:40:47.276754093Z",
"user_id": "${USERID}",
"external_id": "LGFD_OE7DRT",
"name": "OE7DRT-13, Laengenfeld, Tirol, Austria",
"latitude": 47.07321210625363,
"longitude": 10.974540559888204,
"altitude": 1202,
"rank": 10,
"source_type": 5
}
I haven’t found any information about the format of altitude
so I currently
used 1202, which represents my stations height in meters.
To change a stations information I’d then send another request like:
$ curl --header "Content-Type: application/json" --request PUT \
--data '{"external_id": LGFD_OE7DRT, "name": "OE7DRT-13, Längenfeld, Tirol, Austria"}' \
"http://api.openweathermap.org/data/3.0/stations/${STATION_ID}?appid=${APIKEY}"
Send the URL as the stations status text #
Create another virtual environment:
$ python -m venv ~/aprs-venv
$ python -m pip install aprslib
Create systemd files for the user:
$ mkdir -p .config/systemd/user
Create these two files in the directory above:
aprs-sendstatus.timer
:
[Unit]
Description="Send APRS status package to APRS-IS for the Weatherstation"
[Timer]
OnBootSec=2min
OnUnitInactiveSec=30min
Unit=aprs-sendstatus.service
[Install]
WantedBy=default.target
aprs-sendstatus.service
:
[Unit]
Description="Send APRS status package to APRS-IS for the Weatherstation"
After=network.target
[Service]
Type=oneshot
ExecStart=/home/dominic/aprs-venv/bin/python /home/dominic/bin/aprs_sendstatus.py
[Install]
WantedBy=default.target
Enable the timer:
$ systemctl --user daemon-reload
$ systemctl --user enable --now aprs-sendstatus.timer
Check if the timer is listed:
$ systemctl --user list-timers
NEXT LEFT LAST PASSED UNIT ACTIVATES
Sun 2024-06-30 21:54:20 CEST 25min Sun 2024-06-30 21:24:19 CEST 4min 18s ago aprs-sendstatus.timer aprs-sendstatus.service
1 timers listed.
Pass --all to see loaded but inactive timers, too.