• The new "Complete Record Format" from Peet Brothers is more than 400 bytes long. This makes it too long to be used in a stand-alone weather station. While the old format is still available in the U-2000, the Peet Brother's Weather Picture requires the complete format. I want to be able to run a stand-alone weather station and the Weather Picture simultaneously.
• While some U-2000's (though not all) include a 5 minute wind gust as part of the stand-alone string, it is only for the last 5 minutes. If the transmit interval is set to more than 5 minutes, some of the wind gusts will be missed.
• In stand-alone mode, the U-2000 puts out total rainfall since it was last reset. There is no provision for 1 hour or 24 hour rainfall.

FAQs

• Yes, this can be modified to make the Radio Shack Weather Station function as a stand-alone wx station.
• Yes, I will probably do the Radio Shack version, though I'd welcome someone else's participation. It has taken me a month to go from not knowing anything about PICs to producing this project...it isn't hard. The code I have is written in PIC-C, $99 from http://www.ccsinfo.com. A free Windows development environment (MPLab) including assembler for the PIC is available from http://www.microchip.com. I'll give my source code to anyone that wants to try...there isn't much to it, the reason I'm not posting it because there are a couple bugs I'm chasing down. The tough part is fitting it all into the 1024 instruction limit of the 16F84.
• No, the U-II version is not so simple. Both the U-2000 and Radio Shack send date and time information as part of the data. I use this data to time the outgoing packets and to fill in the date and time fields in the APRS packet. Since the U-II does not send this info, a version for the U-II would require an outboard real-time clock, and a way to set it... too much for this project.
• No, a printed circuit board is not available. If someone wants to take this task on, I'd love to buy 10!
• No, I won't build you one, unless you are willing to pay my usual hourly rate...if you have to ask you cannot afford it! It only takes an hour or two to build, and perhaps $15 in parts from DigiKey. One of these days I'll put a part list here...
• If you want a programmed PIC, either send me $10, or mail me a 16F84 and a return paid envelope, and I'll program it for you for free. I can also send you the hex file if you have access to a programmer.

Pictures of the prototype:

Schematic (forgive the low quality artwork!)