Things have been quite hectic around here for the last few weeks so I haven't had a chance to post. I been asked to add some additional detail to the process I use to send my house / outdoor / & garage temperatures to aprs.fi.
I've updated my git repository (www.github.com/robingreig/raspi-git/aprx) with the latest files.
***** aprx.conf is now my configuration file with all of the custom beacon files included *****
beacon01.txt is the actual beacon file that transmits the temperatures & is beaconed every 10 minutes
T#136,22.5,38.7,15.7,0,0,00000000
T# = Telemetry
136 is my unique number (0 to a maximum of 999) each day.
***I take temperature readings every 10 minutes and save them to the file, then I take the # of minutes since midnight for this beacon file / 4 to give me a unique number and copy that to this text file
So the unique number for my first beacon file should be 10 minutes past midnight / 4 = 2
Second unique number for the second beacon file = 20 minutes / 4 = 5
Since there are 1440 minutes in a day (24 hours x 60 minutes) / 4 my maximum beacon number would be 360 each day before it resets.
22.5 = House Temperature
37.7 = Outside Temperature + 40
*** Remembering that the number sent has to be between 0 & 255, if it is cold and I have a negative temperature, it won't send properly. So, worst case my outside temp would be -40C, so I add 40 to the outside temp so even worst case, my number would be 0. Then within my equations text file, I subtract 40 off the number to return to the actual outside temperature.
15.7 = Garage Temperatur
0,0,00000000 are additional values that are not used, but in my experience I needed to add them to the string for it to be recognized properly.
beacon02.txt is the parameters file and is beaconed every 120 minutes
:VE6RBN-1 :PARM.House Temp,Outside Temp,Garage Temp
This is a static text file that is beaconed, it does not change, since my parameters don't change
beacon03.txt is the units of measure file and is beaconed every 120 minutes
:VE6RBN-1 :UNIT.Deg C,Deg C,Deg C
This is a static text file as well and doesn't change.
beacon04.txt is the equations file and is beaconed every 120 minutes
:VE6RBN-1 :EQNS.0,1,0,0,1,-40,0,1,0
There are 3 variables sent for every parameter
House Temp (first set of 3) = 0, 1 , 0
Outside Temp (second set of 3) = 0, 1, -40
Garage Temp (third set of 3) = 0, 1, 0
First number of the set is used if we want to square the variable ( which I don't need to do)
Second number is a multiplier (I don't want to multiply my value, so I set it to 1, value x 1 = value)
Third number is a value to add to your variable.
Remembering that I added 40 to my outside temperature, here I subtract 40 from my outside variable to bring the value back to where it should be.
The only other point I wanted to bring up was that I haven't had time to experiment with sending these values out over the air, so I've set my 3 static beacon files (beacon02, beacon03, & beacon04) to be sent out over the internet only. As time allows I want to play with sending this information out over the air in a way that will be displayed properly.
Thanks for reading,
Robin
