WxBot is an APRS auto responder which provides weather forecasts and other information in response to APRS messages. I have updated the program to support sending the reply to the Outernet APRS feed.
In theory, it is working, but my Outernet receiver hasn’t arrived yet, so I don’t have a way of verifying if the responses are making it to the Outernet APRS feed.
Unfortunately, forecasts are only available for areas covered by the US national weather service. I’m working on TAF forecasts, but don’t have it ready yet… Metar and CWOP reports will work anywhere.
Examples: Send an APRS message to WXBOT with the word OUTNET and receive a response which includes OUTNET in the path which should cause it to appear in the Outernet APRS feed.
metar outnet
will return the METAR report for the nearest ICAO station, as long as you have transmitted at least 1 location packet.
cwop outnet
Will return the current conditions as reported by the nearest CWOP station, as long as you have transmitted a location packet.
KSFO outnet
Replace KSFO with any ICAO airport code. The program will return the metar for that airport.
San Francisco,CA outnet
Will return a weather forecast for San Francisco, CA. Will work for any city in the United States. Spell out the city, abbreviate the state, and separate them with a comma.
There are many other features, but most are only useful for US locations. Read the details at https://sites.google.com/site/ki6wjp/wxbot.
To use WxBot, you need to have a ham radio license and a way to get an APRS message to the internet. This can be done via VHF using terrestrial digipeaters, via APRS satellite, or even via HF radio.
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Martin Nile
KI6WJP