I am curious what it would take to create a simple do-it-yourself weather station that can report a METAR in a non official fashion. It should provide the usual information and have an internet uplink.
Obviously temperature, dewpoint, QNH and wind are trivial. What about visibility and cloud cover? I presume the ceilometer is the most complex/expensive part of it.
There are companies that offer small airport systems but that is still too expensive for most small airports. One example is Vaisala.
What about visibility and cloud cover? I presume the ceilometer is the most complex/expensive part of it.
Regarding the visibility measurements you might be able to write a clever software that evaluates a webcam image for distance clues. If you look at this webcam image from one of my frequent destinations (EDAB airfield cam) you will find quite a few features that could be used for distance measuring, e.g. the light poles along the apron. Of course this would only work well during daytime.
And for the cloud height measurements, I see another problem: Ceilometers work with laser beams. Pointing a laser beam skywards without permission (and which you will probably not get) may not be such a good idea... unless you work at very low power levels but then your measurement range will be limited.
