Anyone using a phone modem?

[Jeffsbach]

I'm installing my weather station at a summer bach (cabin). When I'm there in the summer, I pay for a DSL connection, but the rest of the year I plan to just use a phone connection via a USB modem to transfer files to my web site. Since I'm just getting my ducks in a row now, I thought I'd check here and see if anyone has done this already.

Jeff

[nikola]

Using dial-on-demand is an option, but rather hard one. There were very convenient devices, such as Orinoco RG-500, first gen. Apple AirPort and similar that could take care of it for You, and I am shure that they are very cheap second-hand, as the RG is out of production for years now. They all can be recognised by using 802.11b and having phone line input.

If You take in consideration amount of work needed to install usb modem, make configuration changes and after all pay for one call each 5/10/xx minutes, shouldn't it be better to just leave the aDSL on, and buy one (ethernet) webcam so we can all enjoy nice view from Your cabin?

[Jeffsbach]

Thank you, I'll check those devices out. My plan for the off season is to just report once every couple hours. The phone service with a modem will be much cheaper still (even with measured service). I'm messing around with IP cameras now, but I think I need to wait a year for prices to drop on IP cameras that steam to a NAS (I can get a 1TB NAS with Samba for under $100 now). The goal is to have one IP camera which streams to a local NAS during the daylight. Periodically, the camera would FTP a snapshot to my website. Ideally, the IP camera would pan and tilt, but that is way out of my hobby price range. For $25 I could pickup a pan/tilt USB Missle Launcher and mount the camera to that and control it remotely via the meteohub. Either way, I've got lots of ideas, but between kids soccer games and replacing the cabin kitchen this winter, the hobby gets relegated to the bottom of the list.

Jeff

[nikola]

You might want to check price on edimax IP-1500/1510 ethernet webcam. The picture is not high in resolution, but the price is over here under US$50.

There is also one more option to be considered. Since there is not much data to be transfered (~1kb text or ~40kb with one image), maybe ham packet radio could be an option. That is maybe a long shot, but it also could be a solution.