Who is KD5HIA?
My name is Matthew Clark I am a licensed amateur radio operator. I obtained my callsign in May of 1999 in Lubbock, TX.
What does amateur radio have to do with weather?
Many weather enthusiasts who are also volunteer storm spotters (SKYWARN members), and many (if not most) are also amateur radio operators. One of the many benefits to having a license to operate is for communicating spotter location and conditions, as well as coordinating emergency management activities. Additionally, members of the Citizen Weather Observer Program (CWOP) can be identified by their FCC-issued call-sign. Of course, a weather enthusiast need not have a amateur radio license to become a member of CWOP -- they'll just be assigned an arbitrary identifier instead (but they cannot operate amateur radio equipment).
I am not actively involved in storm spotting, so radio communications isn't directly involved in my weather observation hobby.
The weather station
The equipment in use is a professional-grade Vantage Pro2 from Davis Instruments, which is mounted on the roof of my home in San Angelo, TX, is solar-powered, and includes the following sensors:
- Temperature (fan-aspirated, reduces effect of solar radiation)
- Humidity
- Rain Collector
- Anemometer
- Solar Radiation
- UV
The software suite consists of Virtual Weather Station by Ambient Weather, a MySQL database, and an IIS7/PHP5 web server. The data that is collected is archived and sent every few minutes to many external sources, including the National Weather Service and Weather Underground. However, Google will reveal that my data can be found in hundreds of places all over the Internet.
