Putting the Pi to use
After some pointed searching among the “not yet unpacked” boxes, I finally struck gold. Or Pi. Depends on your point of view. I have a number of tech projects that were put on hold, months ago. Waiting to move and all that. I’m now ready to apply my theory to practice.
One goal is to get a webcam running, to add some visual content to the weather station site. My hope is that the early Pi card will prove powerful enough to capture stills from the attached camera chip and feed the content to an offsite server. If all goes as imagined, I’ll mount the camera in the garage window, pointed south. Not tonight; I will need to do some software config first.
The other plan is more “leading edge”. I have a pair of SDR dongles, along with the “cute” antennas. I’d like to install two different receivers; one for ADS-B, which will decode the data bursts from overflying aircraft. I have the dongle in test mode on a Windows laptop, and I have “seen” individual indentifiers. The overflight time is short; a matter of minutes, and the software doesn’t seem to keep a log. Maybe it can; some more study is required.
I also want a receiver for AIS data, from passing ships. I can see ’em; this would identify the moving lights seen at night. Again, quite feasible, once I get the second Pi configured. Not much longer; I’m keen.
Will this change my life? No. That’s hardly the point. This is technology for the sake of technology.
