Credits

The Perth Airport Weather-Webcam system is implemented by the Scottish Aero Club on behalf of its members.
The I.T. equipment and on-going support is kindly donated by Straker Systems Ltd. (01236 456666).
The new clubroom display unit was supplied and installed by Kelvin Kitchen, Bedroom and Bathroom Systems.

The “brain” of the system is provided by a dedicated Straker PC (AMD 2400+, 512MB RAM, 40G hard drive, internal 56k modem) running Windows 2000 Professional.
The PC connects to the Internet to upload the latest data and pictures every 15 minutes during daylight hours via a Freeserve Anytime internet account on a standard BT dial-up phone line.

The webcam is mounted inside a custom enclosure positioned facing north on the outside ground floor of the main airport building, and is connected to the PC indoors via a standard USB extension cable.
The camera is an inexpensive Benq 1300 digital camera running in continuous webcam mode. A sample snapshot is taken by the software every 30 minutes during daylight-ish hours. A small polarised lens is taped over the camera to reduce reflected glare from surfaces and sky.

It is envisaged that the camera will ultimately be re-positioned higher up and facing east, since there are more useful topographical features for estimating visibility. (The King’s Seat hill, for example).

Weather Station

Weather data is provided by an Oregon Scientific WMR928 Weather Station. This includes separate sensors for;

• Wind strength and direction
• Outside temperature and humidity
• Rainfall guage
• Barometer
• Inside temperature and humidity

Weather data is sent to the indoor base station over 2.4GHz wireless connections.  The base station itself is connected to the PC by means of an RS232 serial cable.  The PC then analyses the data and transmits it onwards to the Internet.

The weather sensors and transmitters are mounted on a custom-built steel gantry provided by Hugh Cullens of the Scottish Aero Club. The gantry is free-standing and currently located 20m from the nearest taxiway opposite holding point C (runway 09-27).

For more information, contact: