Has any one used the Tempest in an airport environment? I’d like to use it to provide airport weather advisories. I first need to convert the output to voice on demand, then develop a fixed voice paragraph with the ability to insert data in the voice paragraph. An example is voice saying “the temperature is 56 degrees, the wind is 230 degrees at 8 knots” when triggered.
Any suggestions are appreciated. Any existing software for text to speech?
One way to do it would be to use MaryTTS, Home Assistant, WeatherFlow2MQTT, and MQTT; this would require some effort to setup. I do something similar but for specific conditions.
So yes it is possible, but will require some effort.
Not understanding where the ‘voice’ is being output to nor what your triggers are. Are you looking to do something like cooking up a custom Alexa skill ?
I would not use a consumer device in that safety-related environment, but I guess I’d start with ‘how would you do it if it was you just reading a hand-crafted text file’ ?
I ASSume that he wants to do something like this, either by a pilot keying (kerchunking) their aircraft radio or by automated phone message: (845) 457-1486
Feel free to call at any time, since your tax money pays for it…
vreihen is correct, ultimately the pilot will key the mic 3 or 4 times and the current weather observation will be transmitted on the aviation Unicom frequency. There are at least two companies currently offering this feature but the weather systems are $5000 (SayWeather) and $100,000 (Potomac Aviation, MicroTower).
For the aviation people, the FAA looks at WEATHER ADVISORIES differently than aviation AWOS or ASOS WEATHER OBSERVATIONS found at many of the larger airports. Weather advisories are like the Unicom operator broadcasting winds, temps and barometer setting from his/her desk when the pilot transmits to the airport letting them know that they plan to land. The Code of Federal Regulations, 47 CFR 87.219, addresses the use of automated systems at airports not having an operational ASOS/AWOS.
The system will use the data from the Tempest and broadcast on the airport Unicom frequency using a Yaesu .FTA-250 or equal, aircraft radio. The input will be through the mic input to the Yaesu.
The one issue I, off the top of my head, don’t know is who to determine the mic clicks; everything else is straight forward.
A couple of docker containers running what I mentioned above plus a raspberry pi running KODI with the jack set as the audio output and you can get information from the tempest into Home Assistant and then Text-to-Speech to the RPi connected to the radio.
I would also look at APRS weather stations which are popular. This could answer some of your questions.
I ASSume that they already have a mechanism in place that can be tapped for receiving a radio key/kerchunk pattern. Many non-controlled GA airports already use this same mechanism so that pilots can turn on the field’s lights after normal airport hours.
It would be a neat open-source project to take a Raspberry Pi and a USB SDR dongle to offer a cheap option for small airports. I assume that a $20 SDR can tune down to the 122 MHz AM air bands, and it would only be minor coding to detect kerchunks via software. No f-in-weigh would I want to be involved with any aviation/safety project using consumer-grade hardware, though! Raising $5,000 to buy the professional option seems like a bargain…even if you have to pass a hat around the FBO collecting money for it.
On a sad note, I just heard this morning that Robert Bruninga (creator of APRS) passed away a few days ago…