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---
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title: "Bye Netatmo – welcome Ecowitt"
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summary: >
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I'm totally done with Netatmo at this point and I am more than happy to
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show you my new setup at my home. I'll start with a
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[WS69](https://shop.ecowitt.com/products/ws69?variant=41418884743330)
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(all-in-one) sensor and the Gateway [GW1100](https://shop.ecowitt.com/products/gw1100?variant=41418887987362).
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Combined with WeeWX we will publish our data to some online weather networks/services.
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date: 2023-12-26T14:06:19+0100
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lastmod: 2024-09-28T23:48:07+0000
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categories:
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- amateur-radio
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- computerstuff
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tags:
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- aprs
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- netatmo
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- raspberry-pi
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- selfhost
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- weewx
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- wx
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---
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Finally. I've seen this coming for a long time but I didn't want to remove the
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"somewhat pricey" Netatmo stuff[^1] just like it costs nothing.
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[^1]:
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The sensor are not very expensive, but they are not cheap either.
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They use a lot of batteries (usually type AA or AAA) and they perform quite good, but
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all data is stored on Netatmo servers and your weather station has to use their API
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to download actual values.
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"Luckily" the weather station wasn't able to get actual data from their servers and a
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complete re-installation (with fresh api keys) didn't resolve the problem. Also some
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manual requests from my computers (yep, I used two with different operating systems)
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weren't able to obtain any data through their API.
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That was finally the point where I decided to remove this ~~shit~~ stuff. And some
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outdoor cameras will follow as well, when I have found new and affordable hardware.
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I'm somewhat looking towards [Axis](https://www.axis.com/products/network-cameras).
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The following article describes my new weather station setup at home but I wrote this
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down nearly two weeks after the installation and I might forgot something -- read this
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with a grain of salt.
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## Installation of the gateway
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This is super easy, there is a temperature and humidity sensor with a ~70 cm long cable
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(and a ~1 m USB cable, which I don't use). I plugged the gateway into my Raspberry Pi 4
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directly and finished the setup on my smartphone. I won't cover this here, the process
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is really super easy and straightforward.
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I will continue with the main software, the logic of most personal weather stations:
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[WeeWX](https://www.weewx.com/).
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## Installation of WeeWX on the Raspberry Pi 4
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As a little sidenote, I am using the **testing branch** of Debian, which is
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_Debian GNU/Linux trixie/sid_ at the moment.
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### First off, a database is needed
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I use a MySQL database for the weather data which should be installed before
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we connect WeeWX to a database.
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```console
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$ sudo apt install mariadb-server
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$ sudo mysql_secure_installation
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$ mysql -uroot -p
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```
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Login with the new password and create the necessary users and databases. I will name them
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both **weewx**.
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You can also use graphical management software to manage your mysql databases, but you would
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need to secure your installation yourself.
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```console
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$ sudo apt-get install phpmyadmin
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```
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That would also pull in a whole lot of packages like PHP.
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{{< alert >}}
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Don't allow access from the internet to your management software!
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{{< /alert >}}
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As I had a backup of my old installation I will import the old data into my fresh database
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setup:
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```console
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$ mysql -uweewx -p'{fancy-password}' weewx < weewx-backup.sql
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```
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The backup was done like:
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```console
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$ mysqldump -u weewx -p weewx > weewx-backup.sql
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```
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I had data from 2022-01-01 to 2023-12-10, which were about 120MB.
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### Some information about security
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{{< alert >}}
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If your setup is focused on security, my approach is probably not suited for you!
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{{< /alert >}}
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I will install the packaged version of WeeWX -- which is version 4.10.2 at this moment
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but the main concern is the user which runs the installed application. The installed
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application will be run by the **root** user.
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Since this is a dedicated Raspberry Pi that will never run something else (it also has
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its own MariaDB server running)... _I will live with it_.
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In contrast, my last WeeWX installation was on my webserver (it only had to pull the
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weather data via an API from a cloud network) and was setup with a dedicated user for
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that particular task (running the daemon and publishing the website directly on the
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server).
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The new setup will also publish directly to my webserver and again, a dedicated user is
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used for this on the webserver. Authentication is done via ssh and a dedicated
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ssh key on the Raspberry Pi.
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Back to topic, I was about to install WeeWX on the Raspi. Follow the
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[instructions](https://weewx.com/docs/debian.htm) on their website and all is fine :wink:
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Nonetheless, I leave the code snippets over here:
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```console
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$ wget -qO - https://weewx.com/keys.html | sudo gpg --dearmor --output /etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d/weewx.gpg
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$ wget -qO - https://weewx.com/apt/weewx-python3.list | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/weewx.list
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$ sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade && sudo apt-get dist-upgrade
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$ sudo apt-get install weewx
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```
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The third line is quite extended because I had to update several packages on my Raspberry Pi first.
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They suggest to look at the WeeWX logs via `sudo tail -f /var/log/syslog` -- that is
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actually not the best idea on newer linux distributions. Newer distributions use
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[systemd](https://systemd.io/) and it comes with its own userspace tools to obtain the
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journal (the logs).
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I use either `journalctl -fe` or specific to WeeWX `journalctl -feu weewx`.
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They also use the init files for starting and stopping; if you want to use systemd for that, you
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would typically start and stop WeeWX like this:
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```console
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$ sudo systemctl start weewx(.service)
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$ sudo systemctl stop weewx(.service)
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```
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As you can see, you can append `.service` to the service name or just not use it. This is not needed though,
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as there is no unit file as per se, but systemd knows the actual init file and internally generates
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a unit file.
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There is actually a unit file at [Github](https://github.com/weewx/weewx/wiki/systemd).
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As my old installation was on my webserver I had to adopt another script to work properly.
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You can find that script on my older article about
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[moving WeeWX to OpenBSD]({{< ref "41-moving-weewx-to-openbsd" >}}).
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But we drift off again...
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### Install weewx-gw1000 driver
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```console
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$ wget -P /var/tmp https://github.com/gjr80/weewx-gw1000/releases/download/v0.6.0b2/gw1000-0.6.0b2.tar.gz
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$ sudo wee_extension --install=/var/tmp/gw1000-0.6.0b2.tar.gz
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```
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Taken from the [README](https://github.com/gjr80/weewx-gw1000) file, go and have a look at it,
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as you might need to change the config.
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I tested the driver with
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```console
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$ PYTHONPATH=/usr/share/weewx python -m user.gw1000 --test-driver
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```
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and finally updated the WeeWX configuration
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```console
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$ sudo wee_config --reconfigure --driver=user.gw1000
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```
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{{< alert "circle-info" >}}
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You should check the WeeWX configuration file if everything got updated correctly
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and you may probably fill in an IP address.
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{{< /alert >}}
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I tried to use it as a weewx-service but ended with the normal driver setup.
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A final restart of WeeWX whenever you change your config file.
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```console
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$ sudo systemctl restart weewx
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```
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### Install the Weather Data Center Skin
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```console
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$ wget -O "/tmp/weewx-wdc.zip" https://github.com/Daveiano/weewx-wdc/releases/download/v3.4.0/weewx-wdc-v3.4.0.zip
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$ mkdir /tmp/weewx-wdc
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$ unzip /tmp/weewx-wdc.zip -d /tmp/weewx-wdc/
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$ sudo wee_extension --install /tmp/weewx-wdc/
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```
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### Install the weewx-xaggs extension
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Install and configure as shown on the
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[wiki page](https://github.com/Daveiano/weewx-wdc/wiki/Support-for-weewx-xaggs).
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### Install the weewx-forecast extension
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There is also a [wiki page](https://github.com/Daveiano/weewx-wdc/wiki/Support-for-weewx-forecast)
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for this. Read carefully and my observation is: use Openweathermap.
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I had shitloads of problems trying to use the forecast of WUnderground and I finally
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ended up using Openweathermap (which worked out of the box).
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#### WUnderground
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I tried to install this initially because it was the cheapest solutions. You get free
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forecast information if you provide your weather data to their network. I'm not sure if this
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is the official way because I read this somewhere.
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#### Openweathermap
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This is also a good solution because it works instantly and it is not as expensive as the other
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options, the free available API calls should be enough for a personal weather station.
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The default options in the `skin.conf` file work fine for me, don't forget to comment them out.
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## Uploading data to other weather websites/services
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### Ecowitt
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Ecowitt publishes the data on their network: <https://www.ecowitt.net/home/index?id=163378>
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You need to be logged in to view other stations though.
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### WUnderground
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Because I already registered an account for the forecasts I decided to keep the account and
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push my weather data to their network.
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I thought I could upload my historical data with `wunderfixer` but it did not got imported.
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```console
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$ for month in {1..12}; do for i in {1..31}; do sudo wunderfixer -d 2022-$month-$i; done; done
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$ for month in {1..12}; do for i in {1..31}; do sudo wunderfixer -d 2023-$month-$i; done; done
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```
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This is very theoretical because I wasn't able to import all my past data. I won't look into this
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any further because I really don't care and I personally don't like the WUnderground website that much.
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My station can be found here: <https://www.wunderground.com/dashboard/pws/ILNGEN12/>
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### AWEKAS
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AWEKAS is an Austrian weather map system (Automatisches Wetterkarten System). I found this site
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actually while looking for information about the different forecast models mentioned in the
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forecast plugin above (well, not direclty...).
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Anyway, they provide a paid website for your weather data, so if you don't want to host your own
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website this might be interesting to you. The price is currently at 3.83 € (excl. VAT) per month
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(that would be ~50 € a year) -- forecasts are pulled from
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[World Weather Online](https://www.worldweatheronline.com/) and include a 3-day preview (only).
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What I liked on AWEKAS is, that they blocked my air pressure measurements (only those) **within a few
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hours** as they were off a bit (~9 hPa higher). I then calibrated the sensor and made a quick check,
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then I unblocked them on my stations control panel. I've seen they are still a bit high and low sometimes,
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but now I know I should keep an eye on them for a while.
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The station can be found here: <https://www.awekas.at/en/instrument.php?id=32962>
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And if it is still online, the webstation can be found here:
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<https://stationsweb.awekas.at/index.php?id=32962>
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I've included a preview here because I registered recently and they gave me one month of a free
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webstation (that is how they call the website that publishes the data).
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### CWOP/MADIS
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Let's write these short words out one time:
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CWOP
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: Citizen Weather Observer Program
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: <https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=CWOP>
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MADIS
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: Meteorological Assimilation Data Ingest System
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: <https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=MADIS>
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Of course I upload my data to the CWOP as my station is a registered CWOP station. CWOP sends their
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data to MADIS, who then rate my station in relation to my neighboring stations.
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You can have a look at my station [AV859](https://weather.gladstonefamily.net/site/AV859) if you like --
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hough, it seems the information there did not get updated yet as it still shows Netatmo as my hardware and
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also other people reported problems with the CWOP (and sometimes FindU) sites.
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Recent packets can be seen here: <http://www.wxqa.com/sss/search1.cgi?keyword=oe7drt-13>
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## One last view at the old page
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Unfortunately I only have the statistics page captured.
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