Weather at a private field?

alindsay

alindsay

Pre-Flight
Joined
May 24, 2007
Messages
93
Location
Omaha area
Display Name
Display name:
Allan
The field where I'm based doesn't have ASOS or AWOS and lately the light has been out on the sock. This got me to thinking about how I could get weather while in flight.

I know ASOS and AWOS is expensive so I wondered how viable it would be to have a private weather station with pilot controlled reporting?


I'm sure there are pitfalls but I wanted to throw this out for the group.

Any ideas how to do this?

Allan
 
first thing would be to get a new lightbulb for the windsock. not anywhere near any other airports with weather reporting? Scott will chime in hopefully, apparently ASOS's arent too expensive, at least the very basic models.
 
I agree with Tony...first thing to do is get the light fixed on the sock.

Beyond that, I would suggest improving your knowledge of weather systems so that you can be fairly confident of what the weather is at your airport by looking at that of the airports around the area, either combined with surface charts during preflight or with the preflight's synoptic knowledge while getting area info during flight.

Unless you ONLY fly within sight of the home airport, you're going to run into this situation eventually anyway, so you may as well prepare yourself now :)

Fly safe!

David
 
tonycondon said:
first thing would be to get a new lightbulb for the windsock. not anywhere near any other airports with weather reporting? Scott will chime in hopefully, apparently ASOS's arent too expensive, at least the very basic models.
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Don't count on his ASOS to work for this application. I can check with my airport manager about the cost of a weather system.
 
tonycondon said:
first thing would be to get a new lightbulb for the windsock. not anywhere near any other airports with weather reporting? Scott will chime in hopefully, apparently ASOS's arent too expensive, at least the very basic models.
Click to expand...

Scott and I are based at the same field. Too bad he can't get us an ASOS. :)

I agree about the light for the sock. I just called and reported that it was out.

Allan
 
tonycondon said:
first thing would be to get a new lightbulb for the windsock. not anywhere near any other airports with weather reporting? Scott will chime in hopefully, apparently ASOS's arent too expensive, at least the very basic models.
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About $50k actually

I think Alan is looking for something a bit more than 'basic'.

The airport he is talking about is the same airport I am based at. There is an absence of reporting stations around. The closets reliable one is about 20NM away. There is an airport closer that has an AWOS but the brain trust that installed it put it next to a berm and in a hole. It never is correct. Even for that field.

The airport in question, 10C, does have a WX station in the FBO. Calling on the CTAF will get a response most of the time so you can at least get wind info. But it would be nice to have a real AWOS out in that neck of the woods.
 
Here in Michigan it seems like most airports have AWOS/ASOS - I sure find it handy.
Looking at your area, Burlington (BUU) seems to be the closest. I guess I would listen to that, and also monitor Janesville (JVL), Kenosha (ENW), and certainly O'Hare. I know that's not exactly 10C, but it will give you a good idea of what's going on, and along with the windsock (with the new light) you should be OK.
Just IMHO B)
 
smigaldi said:
Perhaps a midnight acquisitions trip is in order? :D:D:D

Think ORD would miss theirs?
Click to expand...

Count me in..wait...I can't fly if I'm in prison.


What brought this up was my return from Omaha Sun evening. I checked weather on my 496 and RFD was 21008. BUU was 14011 and DKB was 18010. Not really a big deal but with rwys 27 or 9 to pick from, I wanted to make sure I didn't have a tailwind when landing. Since it was dark, I couldn't find anything close to the field that gave me an indication of the winds. I also had my wife and two dogs - sure would hate to have something happen to them!

Come to find out, winds were 180 and mostly calm.

Allan
 
If there is no windsock, and the grass is too short to see which way it is bending in the wind, and no lakes with waves or chimney smoke, then I fly parallel to the runway both directions, which ever way has the slowest ground speed on the GPS is the direction I land.

Barb
 
that or time it threshold to threshold
 
or you could fly a heading perpendicular to the runway and note drift.
 
O.K., here's the best I can do on short notice.

Someone makes a weather station with a low wattage transmitter that broadcasts on your television - say no more than 200 feet away. We take the baseband output of the TV and remodulate it up to another frequency, bumping up the wattage to maybe 5 watts or so. The downside is that you would have to carry a television around in your airplane but hey, you could tell your passengers you have one of those new glass panels with weather.;) When you got to within about 5 miles of the airport you tune the right channel and bingo!, up pops the local weather at the field.

You could probably pull the whole thing off for under a grand.

With most weather stations, getting the audio transcription is the problem.
 
Check these guys out - www.superawos.com . They have this system set up at the airport I trained at (KAPV, Apple Valley, CA) and I think it works pretty well. Click 3 times and a awos type report plays back to you. Also has a radio check feature, click 7 times and speak into the radio, and it will play it back to you. It automatically broadcasts an 'advertisement' every so often also. It's pretty good about not stepping over other's transmissions too; if you hit your PTT it will stop broadcasting.

EDIT: looks like the site doesn't work, but you can see the cached page if you search via google. Not sure of the price, but wouldn't think it would be too expensive. No, I have no association with this company.
 
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There's an airport near me that has something like that too. I didn't know about the radio check - I'll have to test that out, but it does play an ASOS when you click 3 times on the CTAF freq.
 
Double Eagle has (had?? its been way too long since I've flown) SuperAWOS. Click 3 times for advisory, 4 for radio check, 6 for extended advisory.
 
aakorn said:
Check these guys out - www.superawos.com . They have this system set up at the airport I trained at (KAPV, Apple Valley, CA) and I think it works pretty well. Click 3 times and a awos type report plays back to you. Also has a radio check feature, click 7 times and speak into the radio, and it will play it back to you. It automatically broadcasts an 'advertisement' every so often also. It's pretty good about not stepping over other's transmissions too; if you hit your PTT it will stop broadcasting.

EDIT: looks like the site doesn't work, but you can see the cached page if you search via google. Not sure of the price, but wouldn't think it would be too expensive. No, I have no association with this company.
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Super AWOS costs $$$$$$ Allan is looking for something more in the $1000 range.
 
For some reason I recall the FAA required an airport in Ohio to cease transmitting weather conditions because the system did not meet requirements. Not sure if it was content, accuracy or permit.
 
alindsay said:
The field where I'm based doesn't have ASOS or AWOS and lately the light has been out on the sock. This got me to thinking about how I could get weather while in flight.

I know ASOS and AWOS is expensive so I wondered how viable it would be to have a private weather station with pilot controlled reporting?


I'm sure there are pitfalls but I wanted to throw this out for the group.

Any ideas how to do this?

Allan
Click to expand...

You can carry aviation radio service provided by NAV air, Anywhere Map, or Garmin. We have found these products affordable and worth its weight in gold. Here is an independent write-up. http://www.flyron.com/wireless.html

DISCLAIMER: Hubby is working for AirGator, which creates NAV air systems.
 
OH Flier said:
For some reason I recall the FAA required an airport in Ohio to cease transmitting weather conditions because the system did not meet requirements. Not sure if it was content, accuracy or permit.
Click to expand...

Pending that hose on the fire...

Low power AM transmitters are FCC legal. You'd just need a weather station source to go into the transmitter. It could be done with a weather station with serial or USB, a computer and voice synthesizer like the one built in to Mac or a standalone version. Tune in with the ADF. Of course, you'd still need to have the ADF.
 
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mikea said:
Pending that hose on the fire...

Low power Am transmitter are FCC legal. You'd just need a weather station source to go into the transmitter. It could be done with a weather station with serial or USB, a computer and voice synthesizer like the one built in to Mac or a standalone version. Tune in with the ADF. Of course, you'd still need to have the ADF.
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Or an MP3 player with AM receiver hooked into the audio panel. :)
 
AuntPeggy said:
You can carry aviation radio service provided by NAV air, Anywhere Map, or Garmin. We have found these products affordable and worth its weight in gold. Here is an independent write-up. http://www.flyron.com/wireless.html

DISCLAIMER: Hubby is working for AirGator, which creates NAV air systems.
Click to expand...

How does that get me surface conditions at say... M61, 2P4, 6Y9?
 
I've been searching and found some of the pieces I need.

1) Weather station - I have one and can easily get one if my current station is too old. An Advantage Pro2 would be ideal.
http://www.davisnet.com/weather/products/vantage2.asp

2) Ramsey Electronics has an aviation radio kit and Pilot Controlled lighting switch - http://www.ramseyelectronics.com/cgi-bin/commerce.exe?preadd=action&key=AR2

http://www.ramseyelectronics.com/cgi-bin/commerce.exe?preadd=action&key=AR2L

I called Davis tech support and the software supports outputting the weather into a text file. The text file could then be run into a text to speech progam to output the report.

Problem now is how do I get the response back over the air once the PCL module has been activated? I guess I could always just broadcast a loop of the weather but I think using 122.75 would get me in trouble. Pilot activation would be best. Still I think the FCC might not like it.

SuperAWOS looked ideal but I couldnt get their web page to open. I could only see the info from google.

Allan
 
I have a suspicion that the ASOS equipment would cost $400 if it didn't have to be FAA approved.

We raised money for a VASI somehow. I wonder if you can get by with just describing it as "nonstandard" in the airport information for stuff like that and runway lighting.
 
mikea said:
I have a suspicion that the ASOS equipment would cost $400 if it didn't have to be FAA approved.

We raised money for a VASI somehow. I wonder if you can get by with just describing it as "nonstandard" in the airport information for stuff like that and runway lighting.
Click to expand...


I must not be talented enough with Google because I didn't find any sources for ASOS equipment.

Having a VASI would also be cool. How much was that?

Scott, I like your idea about contacting the "Friends at Galt" group. I recently started meeting people at Galt thru some assistance I provided to the local eaa chapter (color printing of the newsletter) so hopefully I can guage how much support changes like this have.

I added wifi at my hangar using a broadband cell card and I am hearing more pilots would like to have internet access. The FBO has wifi internet but the ISP has it locked down to certain mac addresses. Maybe the Friends at Galt can help with that too.

Thanks everyone for your feedback,

Allan
 
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