Convert Ethernet, Bluetooth, or WiFi Directly to 3G CDMA or 4G LET Cellular

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dereckbc

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Back again guys. Some regulars may remember me as I recently built a RC PPM Joystick for RC Planes. Works great and have several flights. Could not have done it without the help I received here.

Well my RC Model Flying club wants to put a Personal Weather Station at the flying field and link it to Weather Underground so members can look on the Internet and get site weather conditions. Guess who got drafted?

I have no intention of building a weather station. I can buy it for $150 to $200 almost ready to go. All of the commercial models have three methods of connecting to the Internet:

Ethernet Port
WiFi
Bluetooth

Problem is we have no communications at the Flying Field. AC power we have. Only solution is to use Cellular 3G or 4G. There is VZW and ATT tower 2 miles from the site so it should be a piece of cake. I know I can use a Router with a Cellular bridge which is a lot of overkill and EXPENSIVE. For $700 to $2000 you can have a one too. So I am looking for a cheap cheap solution like a simple device. What I do have is several USB 3G Modems but again that takes a device to interface the too.

So the obvious question is do you know how to do this easily and most importantly done dirt cheap? With or without my USB 3G Modem

THX in advance.

Dereck
 
Do you have a line of sight (or not too obstructed) from the sky park to a place that has wifi?

If so, you could use a cantenna or something similar. You'd probably need a directional antenna on both ends.
 
if your an amateur radio operator theres options you could do ;)
then again the equipment might still cost that :p
 
While not immediately Teensy compatible, I was intrigued by the AT&T IoT Starter Kit that may be used for such a task.

See https://starterkit.att.com/kits

Note especially the kit that contains a close relative of the Teensy - a NXP K64F Freedom Board.

Of course, the magic is always the firmware and libraries that actually run on the micro of choice.

However, I believe the included Cellular Modem just speaks serial commands so it may be possible to adapt their example applications to one that matches your needs. You, of course, need to consider the amount of data exchanged and plan accordingly. AT&T is in business to make money !!

Included in the AT&T starter kit is:

AT&T global SIM card that works in more than 200 countries and territories
4G LTE modem that runs on the AT&T network
Expandable development board that works with a range of plug-in sensors
API to monitor the network connection and data transfer
Cloud storage to host, manage and share data across multiple groups
Access to AT&T Flow Designer which helps developers launch IoT apps in minutes

---------

If there is a licensed amateur radio operator in your group, you may wish to also consider using APRS to wirelessly transmit the data to world-wide, internet connected, APRS servers that collect, format, and graph your Wx data for you.

A sample, off the shelf, APRS Wx station can be seen at https://www.argentdata.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=29&products_id=135

No endorsement -- just a quick google sample. Google https://www.google.com/search?q=aprs+weather+station for many other options from a variety of sources.

A quick example of the data available from an APRS Wx station can be seen at http://aprs.fi/weather/a/EW8775

------

A third alternative would be to locate a nearby Wx station that is close enough to be representative of the Wx at your field. You would be surprised to discover how many people post their data on-line. Where is your flying field located ?
 
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My main occupation is this kind of stuff (remote monitoring). You basically got two easy options:

- Long Range (WA)N. I mainly work with Lora(WAN). This is a very affordable, semi-open LPWAN technology geared toward IoT applications and working on the ISM band. It has a range of multiple miles (depending on degree of obstruction ofc), uses very little power (you can make transceivers work for years on a single battery) but also has very limited bandwith (but more than enough for sensor data). If you want bidirectional communication you can just buy two RFM95W boards for a few bucks, a small but good antenna and use the Radiohead library to make the two nodes talk to each other.
If you are mainly interested in uplinking data and perhaps scalability, you could buy a RN2483 and use a community driven WAN like The Things Network. You probably will have to buy and place your own gateway, but you won't have to worry about the backend.

- Cellular. The SIM800 series of cellular modems are very affordable (just a few bucks) and maker friendly (if you buy e.g. the SIM800C which you can easily solder yourself) because of high component integration and library support. Check the Adafruit FONA boards and associated libraries for example. I can testify these modems are very reliable and easy to use. I coded a sensor node with integrated FTP client/server and reliable OTA settings update in a day, and have some twenty of them running now in relatively harsh conditions (basements, outdoors, ...).

You can also go the tinkering way like some of the options above (n/o though ;) ), but if you want a reliable, cheap and easily set up way of digital communication, I think these are you two best options.
 
linuxgeek said:
Do you have a line of sight (or not too obstructed) from the sky park to a place that has wifi?

If so, you could use a cantenna or something similar. You'd probably need a directional antenna on both ends.
Click to expand...

Cantenna! Being a ham radio guy that has a different meaning to me. A 1-gallon paint can, with a 50-0hm power resistor inside, filled with mineral oil, sealed with the lid on, and a PL-259 coax connector. aka Dummy Load for a 2000 watt transmitter. Silly me.

I had to go look it up. Might be an option. There is a Hobby Shop roughly 2.14 miles with fairly flat terrain. The shop owner is the Director of the RC Club and does have Internet with WiFi. He was excited to hear about the PWS and I think might be willing to give it a spin.

I am a RF and Electrical Engineer and will look further into this by running some calcs. Right Now I see some 26 dbi gain yaggi's. Only issue I see is the bandwidth required which really cuts range down coupled with the extremely low power WiFi could be a deal breaker. I gotta run the calcs on Path Finder to see if it is possible.

THX
 
Epyon said:
My main occupation is this kind of stuff (remote monitoring). You basically got two easy options:

- Long Range (WA)N. I mainly work with Lora(WAN). This is a very affordable, semi-open LPWAN technology geared toward IoT applications and working on the ISM band. It has a range of multiple miles (depending on degree of obstruction ofc), uses very little power (you can make transceivers work for years on a single battery) but also has very limited bandwith (but more than enough for sensor data). If you want bidirectional communication you can just buy two RFM95W boards for a few bucks, a small but good antenna and use the Radiohead library to make the two nodes talk to each other.
If you are mainly interested in uplinking data and perhaps scalability, you could buy a RN2483 and use a community driven WAN like The Things Network. You probably will have to buy and place your own gateway, but you won't have to worry about the backend.

- Cellular. The SIM800 series of cellular modems are very affordable (just a few bucks) and maker friendly (if you buy e.g. the SIM800C which you can easily solder yourself) because of high component integration and library support. Check the Adafruit FONA boards and associated libraries for example. I can testify these modems are very reliable and easy to use. I coded a sensor node with integrated FTP client/server and reliable OTA settings update in a day, and have some twenty of them running now in relatively harsh conditions (basements, outdoors, ...).

You can also go the tinkering way like some of the options above (n/o though ;) ), but if you want a reliable, cheap and easily set up way of digital communication, I think these are you two best options.
Click to expand...

THX I see one issue with all that. I work for Verizon and can get CDMA service dirt cheap. I am an RF Engineer and Electrical. Mostly do Microwave Radio, Fiber Optic Transport, and Cellular Radio designs for Point to Point. Yeah I know sounds strange asking here, but I do not do much of the user hardware stuff. I can find the hardware to do what I want but is Expensive and overkill.
 
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