This morning I edited the two Python scripts that will be used on the measurement machine to talk to the Ultrasonic Sensor to get the snow depth data.  The first time I ran a test without the sensor connected I got an error indicating that the script did not have permission to access the serial port where the sensor is to be connected.  I changed the permission on the port using:

sudo chmod 777 /dev/serial0

Then the scripts worked but as expected returned an error since no sensor was connected.  I just need to modify how the results are printed out once I get the sensor is connected and that part of the system should be pretty much done other than making a mount for the sensor on the Snow Pole and running a cable out to it.

Over the past couple days I have done a lot of research into how to implement the weather system side of things and I’ve found a very slick approach.  Apparently, over the last 7 or so years since I started using WeeWx to gather the weather station data, a lot of changes have been made.  One of those changes is a very tidy way to add extensions like I want to do with snow depth measurement.  I am going to start working on the new extension package today.

Merry Christmas!