SondeHub-Amateur BalloonAlert Utility

What this tool does:

• Listens to the SondeHub-Amateur live data stream (using pysondehub)
• Filters telemetry based on:
  • Radius from a fixed location
  • A Geo-Fence
  • Flight type (e.g. pico-floater vs up-down balloon)
• Runs float predictions for floater balloons using the SondeHub Tawhiri API
• Sends a notification if either the prediction, or the live telemetry matches the filters, via:
  • Email
  • (Other methods? TBD?)

TODO:

• Save state?
• Better detection of pico-balloons (maybe calculate ascent rate and look for floaters?)
• Other notification methods?

Contacts

• Mark Jessop - [email protected]

Running

Make a copy of the example configuration file, and modify as required:

$ cp alert.cfg.example alert.cfg

(Optional, though recommended) Create a Python virtual environment:

$ python3 -m venv venv
$ . venv/bin/activate

Install required Python dependencies:

(venv) $ pip install -r requirements.txt

Run balloonalert:

(venv) $ python -m balloonalert alert.cfg