Timeline
I'll try to write down the actual timeline to remember when and what had happened with this project.
| Date | Title | Description |
|---|---|---|
| sometime, 2005 | First approach | I don't remember really well, but some time around 2005 I've got an idea to put a weather station on the top of the mountain and collect the realtime data. I've got anemometer, single board computer and small wireless dialup card from WillCOM. Everything worked somehow. However, dialup cost was very high and the coverage was quite limited, so project was canned for a few years. |
| March 26, 2009 | Second approach | I was browsing internet and have found really inexpensive data communication solution to cover a few kilometers from the mountain top to the club house. Instantly, my old idea sprung back to my mind. I've ordered another anemometer/wind vane and a few radio modems to see if it will work this time. |
| April, 2009 | Prototype time | I've build a few prototypes and have installed anemometer on the balcony to see how it works. Ordered some PCB from professional fabrication service. |
| April 22, 2009 | Field testing time | Went outside to check data link range. From the height of a 2-3meters I've got stable reception about 1.5-2km with the low-power short-range transmitter. |
| April 24, 2009 | Another field test | Put the station on the local 150m hill and was really surprised to get a whopping 4-5km range from small power transmitter. Reception quality was marginal, but still very impressive distance. |
| April 29, 2009 | Final field test | This time I went to the actual flying site (350m). Low-power transmitter gave reasonable reception within 2km radius, unfortunately the club house was right on the border of stable reception area. Changed transmitter to the mid-range, got 6+km reception area, which looks totally perfect for any reasonable application. There are still some "dead" zones behind the mountains, but even high-power transceivers don't work well there. |
| May 2, 2009 | First station went online | Installed the first station on the Kirikabu-yama. |
| May 17, 2009 | Internet connection | With a little help from my friends, I've got internet connection for Kirikabu station, so you may watch the data online. To save some bandwidth, data from 00:00 to 06:00 is not shown, but if you need it – you may bug me about this. |
| Jun 04, 2009 | Solar panel at Kirikabu | First station got the solar panel and this hopefully will be the last battery recharge this year (fingers crossed =). I wonder, how long will it work totally unattended. Will it survive through the rainy season? Will it hold well against summer typhoons? Who knows... let's just watch and see. |
| Jun 21, 2009 | Installation at Mino-san is delayed | Talked today with friends from "Flying Mino". Everybody is quite excited, but actual installation will be delayed until the rainy season is over, since there's not much flying in the rain anyway. |
| Jun 26, 2009 | Kyushu Bureau of Telecommunications | People got worried if transmitting digital data in amateur band is somehow illegal. So, today I went to the authorities and spent a few hours talking and trying to figure out the situation with handheld radios and paragliding. Their answer got me quite surprised. In short, using ham radio band to transmit the data is ok, however using handhelds for paragliding is more or less illegal. Go figure... |
| Jul 02, 2009 | Special low-power transmitter band | From now on, the Japanese version of weather station will come in different frequency band dedicated to the telemetry data transfer to avoid legal problems. The output power is fixed to 10mW so we don't need any license. International version still may use 100mW or more of output, please check your local emission laws. |
| Jul 05, 2009 | Kankake-toge | Finally all the problems are solved and the long-awaited installation on Mino is scheduled to happen at Kankake-toge on 19th of July. Internet connection is still undecided. |
| Jul 06, 2009 | ParaTenki t-shirts | I've got a nice logo designed for the ParaTenki accessories and ordered some t-shirts. |
| Jul 19, 2009 | Kankake-toge | We did it! Actually I did not expect 10mW trasmitter to work over 3.5km to the club house, but IT DOES. Next step will be the internet connection, maybe in a week or so. |
| Jul 20, 2009 | Range testing | Appears that with the new narrow-band transmitters it's possible to get about 10km reception with plain simple rubber-duck antenna, or about 15km with the 0.7m car-mounted antenna, or (I don't even know how much, maybe 20+ kilometers) with 7-element Yagi antenna. Wow! Quite unexpected. |
| Jul 25, 2009 | Kamae taikai | Competition was cancelled because of heavy rain, but I still had a chance to talk to the people and introduce ParaTenki to the fellow pilots. I hope they liked it. |
| Jul 27, 2009 | Aomori-ken installation | I was approached by some guy from the other side of the country and he ordered the standard set of weather station with Inet and LED receivers for club house and internet connection. I'm a bit worried if he could install it himself and, most importantly, troubleshoot all the possible issues. Well, I'll keep my fingers crossed. |
| Aug 15, 2009 | Kankake-toge inet | Because of bad reception, Kankake-toge inet station has beed moved to another location with the clear view of the mountain. Data transmission became much better. |
| Aug 20, 2009 | Power lines interference | Station at Kankake-toge could not properly connect to the internet because of some unknown interference, most probably from the power lines nearby. Changed antenna to Yagi. |
| Aug 23, 2009 | Chijiwa installation | Set up the test installation at the Saruba mountain top. |
| Sep 05, 2009 | Chijiwa taikai | Saruba station works just fine for the competition, however the signal does not reach home of the local pilot, where internet connection is supposed to happen. I'm told it's a bit over 10km, and I feel like it should really work. |
| Sep 20, 2009 | Saruba inet connection | I went to check the situation with Saruba internet connection. It looks like the simple dipole antenna can get a good signal from 18+km distance. However, the real place is blocked by another mountain and gets heavy power lines just in the front of the house. Whipped out Yagi antenna, but still reception quality is marginal. Bad luck, gotta find a new place. |
| Sep 26, 2009 | Kotohira installation | With the great help of the local pilots, new station was installed on Kotohira mountain. Inet-receiver is a bit covered by another mountain range, but still gets a signal. |
| Sep 27, 2009 | Ajara-yama (Aomori-ken) | FINALLY!! One long month of battle with the problems is over and Ajara station got a reliable internet connection. Problems may have arisen from the station transmitter being mounted on the electric pole, or other electro-magnetic emission sources, but are quite well timed (6am~18pm), which is very suspicious. Anyway, now it works nonetheless, and we can analyze details at slower pace. |
| Sep 30, 2009 | Kotohira-dake | Local club have got the permission from local authorities to install the permanent station on the top of Kotohira-dake (there's a community park there, hence the necessary paperwork). |
| Oct 01, 2009 | Kotohira-dake | Local pilots has replaced laundry pole with the more permanent one. Looks really great, shiny and pretty. I'm itching to go there and take promo-pictures for the web-site. Maybe next week. |
| Oct 11, 2009 | Kirikabu | I've got a phone call that anemometer blade got broken when someone bumped into it. Next day I went to replace broken parts. Partial downtime (wind vane was perfectly working) was about 20 hours, mostly night time. |
| Oct 14, 2009 | Database engine | Massive speedup in the database engine, getting ready for a big traffic. |
| Oct 18, 2009 | Yoshimatsu | Kyushu championship will happen in Yoshimatsu next week, so I went to put a weather station on the local mountain top. And maybe another will be installed there next week too. Not sure if it will be permanent, though. |
| Nov 04, 2009 | Yatake | Wind station fell on the ground while being moved, wind vane is broken. Replacement is expected in a few days. |
| Nov 07, 2009 | Raizan | Gonna try to install demo-kit and see if we can get reliable reception. |
| Nov 14, 2009 | Raizan | Got internet connection for Raizan station. |
| Nov 27, 2009 | Raizan | 3 days of no reception, went to check weather station. Transmitter worked perfectly. Local guys said to check antenna next day. UPDATE: antenna got fixed on Sat, everything works! |
| Dec 26, 2009 | Katsuragi | New station was installed in Nara-ken. |
| Dec 26, 2009 | Saruba | Replaced demo kit on Saruba, new wind vane, anemometer and the box. |
| Dec 28, 2009 | Paraworld | An article about ParaTenki was printed in February issue of ParaWorld magazine. |
| Jan 16, 2010 | Saruba | Station went offline until power was reset. Strange. |
| Jan 17, 2010 | Battery | New scripts show battery voltage graphs. |
| Feb 16, 2010 | Katsuragi | Weather station got frozen, but still sends data over radio. Temperature sensor is a bit off, should be fixed in the new version. |
| Feb 20, 2010 | Raizan | Temporary fix for wrong temperature reading. Now waiting for sub-zero weather to check. |
| Feb 26, 2010 | Weather station | New boards sent for production, should be back in a week or two. |
| Mar 05, 2010 | Weather station | Low consumption batch sent for production, sleep current should go from 4mA to .1~.5mA |
| Mar 20, 2010 | Raizan | Extra-low consumption boards don't have enough power, had to replace with the new version |
| Mar 21, 2010 | Mino | Yesterday strong wind ripped the solar panel and wrapped wires around the anemometer. Fixed today. |
| Mar 29, 2010 | Higashi-Katsuragi | New station will appear at East TO, about 300m from previous one, but with totally different winds |
| Mar 30, 2010 | Terayama, Ryuumonzan | Two new stations are about to get installed in Wakayama-ken. |
| Apr 01, 2010 | Higashi-Katsuragi | New station is on and connected to the internet! |
| Apr 02, 2010 | Kirikabu | Pole knocked down by strong wind, anemometer and wind vane smashed completely. 1 day downtime before replacement. |
| Apr 03, 2010 | Terayama, Ryuumonzan | Sent the box |
| Apr 06, 2010 | Mizunomaru | Sent the box with test installation for Nishiawa Asia Competition |
| Apr 10, 2010 | Terayama, Ryuumonzan | Terayama is online |
| Apr 29, 2010 | Nishiawa | Full installation (3 weather stations, inet receiver) at Nishiawa Taikai |
| May 02, 2010 | Paratenki | Paratenki is 1 year old! |
| May 06, 2010 | Nishiawa | Weather system worked perfectly during the competition |
| May 08, 2010 | Mikamo | New station in Tochigi-ken |
| May 10, 2010 | Oohira | New station in Tochigi-ken, next to Mikamo |
| May 08, 2010 | Mikamo | New station in Tochigi-ken |
| May 12, 2010 | Hokureizan | New station in Hokkaido |
| May 30, 2010 | Hokureizan | Finally internet connection started to work with Yagi antenna over 15.3km from the mountain |
| Jun 01, 2010 | Kirara | New station in Mie-ken |
| Jun 09, 2010 | Nakatsumine | Another station in Tokushima will open soon |
| Jun 27, 2010 | Oohira,Mikamo | Construction is over, will open soon |
| Jul 11, 2010 | Nakatsumine | Finally went online |
| Jul 17, 2010 | Saruba | Got nice 60km+ reception over a sea |
| Aug 27, 2010 | Kirikabu | Some electronics was repaired as a result of the lightning strike |
| Sep 4-5, 2010 | Saruba | Repaired faulty transceiver |
| Oct 08, 2010 | Kuratake | Finally went online and stable |