The weather station system has been transferred over to a new server due to the previous computer occasionally hanging up. A business grade HP server hooked up to a UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply) has been installed, from which allayit expects to see considerably less unscheduled downtime. To be fair to the old computer, the Acer Revo really wasn’t designed for 24x7x365 server operation.

Occasionally the weather station generates errant rainfall in a large erratic spike that plays havoc with the weather data. Cumulus, the weather station software, has been updated to the latest beta test build to access many new features and rainfall reading stability improvement. A decision has been made to reset the weather dataset as historic data is available from both Weather Underground and PWS Weather.

Over the next few weeks allayit will be investigating robust webcam solutions. This should improve the reliability of the web camera images, provide more information about the image captures and importantly create an image and video archive of the watercourse levels.

Shortly the “real-time” webcam images and weather information will be moved to a new subscription only service as previously announced on this blog.

The Pitillock Burn webcamera has been fixed this morning. The cable was repaired thanks to a donation of a weatherproof box (thanks Neil) and a minor issue with the webcam was dealt with.

Technorati Tags: Pitillock Burn, webcam

The view from the new Freuchie Mill webcam caused some amusement this evening…

Image Capture: View from the webcamera this evening

Tiny spiders had been busy over the last few hours spinning their webs all over the new web camera. Perhaps we should start to call it CCTV instead of a webcam to stop the wee creepy crawlies taking things literally!

Update:
The spiders are at it again this morning. Some research on the Internet has shown spiders abandon locations that don’t catch food. We’ll need to keep clearing the webs away until our unwelcome friends becomes hungry and make a decision to try another takeaway location .

Technorati Tags: spiders, web, webcam

A new webcamera is now in operation offering views of the Pitilock Burn and “Millwaters” outlet pipe on the upstream side of the Freuchie Mill culvert. This webcam, when added to the existing webcam, now offers comprehensive coverage of the Freuchie Mill culvert inlet.

  
Image Capture: The view from the new webcam

A temporary workaround to gain access to the webcam images has been added to the Webcam page.

Updated 1st Oct:
The new webcam has been moved, along with one of the IR illuminators, to offer improved coverage of the culvert and the burn upstream. Thanks go to Dave Young for his assistance with this work and for helping to cut down some tree branches that were limiting the new webcamera’s view.

Technorati Tags: Freuchie, Freuchie Mill, Millwaters, Pitilock Burn, webcam

The Freuchie Mill culvert webcam has been replaced and is now operational. An additional infra-red illuminator has been installed to improve image quality during the hours of darkness. Higher quality lenses with a shorter focal length (wider view) are on order for the webcams to improve the image quality further. The Freuchie Mill road camera will be operation when the new lens have arrive and been fitted to the replacement webcam.

It has been necessary to rig up a temporary access method while the software is being developed to handle not only the webcam images but also a water level monitoring, logging and flood warning alarm system. Hopefully this can all be done before the really nasty weather rolls in and people can go about their business knowing they can keep tabs on the culvert level and be warned when it is getting dangerously high.

Future posts will go into this in more detail as the flood alarm and monitoring system takes shape.

Technorati Tags: flood, Freuchie, Freuchie Mill, webcam

Webcams are currently being installed in flood risk areas of Freuchie to provide a mechanism for the residents to check from anywhere in the world if flooding is putting their property at risk.

At the moment these are still images captured every 5 minutes. In the near future it will be possible to subscribe to a live feed at a small annual charge.

Freuchie Mill is the first area being covered by this new system. Other areas will be done as finances become available to do the work. If you are interested in sponsoring a camera and have mains power and a wired or wireless broadband network available then we’d be interested in hearing from you.

Checkout the Freuchie Webcam Network.

Technorati Tags: flood, flooding, Freuchie, webcam