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everybody TALKS about the weather but nobody DOES anything about it

Don Baer

Don Baer

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somewhere east of Queen Creek, AZ - South East of
Mark Twain is credited with writing that. Ever since I was a little guy I have always wanted a weather station, I would see them advertised in various magazines, there was even one you could build your self in the "Heath Kit" catalog. It was something I always wanted. I recently had a small windfall so I decided to buy one. I know today most people have a weather app on their phone but it's just not the same. I thought about getting one of Dan's Minnesota weather stations but there are two things that ruled it out. First I don't live in Minnesota and second I want to WiFi it to my home network and I couldn't see and easy way to convert it to WiFi so I ruled it out.
I did some research and finally settled on this one.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08M598J5B?ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details&th=1
I'll post more on this thread after it is up and running.
 
I had a similar one made by LeCroix, and sent it back. It kept coming up with errors, like one night it registered a wind speed of 170 mph in the middle of the night. I'm certain that I would have woke up if the wind had blown that hard.

These need to be mounted in a place where the wind direction won't be altered by nearby roofs and trees, where the thermometer isn't in direct Sunlight, etc. This type of place is very difficult to find in our lifestyle. I hope you do better with it than me and the one that I had.

I settled for one that gives me inside and outside temperatures and humidity, and barometric readings. The little transmitter is mounted up near the ceiling on my NW facing porch and on the porch side of a support column out of reach unless on a step ladder, so no visitor tampering is possible, and it's out of even any blowing rain since it's not water proof. Once a year I need to replace the two AA batteries in this transmitter. The inside display is on the wall to the right, and above the computer that I'm using. 59.9 deg F outside, 74.5 deg F inside, 95% RH outside, and 60% RH inside right now at 12:30 AM Today. It's also showing that the barometer is rising, since the hurricane has passed us and is headed for NYC.

Charley
 
Had one that bI nought fromm estate sale. Worked ok till birds decided to desicrate all over everything. They ended up ruining the thing. Even put up rubber snake to scare tnem off. They pearched on tje darned thing. So I fired the rascal.
Still wouldm like tomtry again as birds are not as thick around here any more for some reason. Very few hummers, Just a few sparrows no cardinals,no jays.
David
 
Charles Lent said:
These need to be mounted in a place where the wind direction won't be altered by nearby roofs and trees, where the thermometer isn't in direct Sunlight, etc. This type of place is very difficult to find in our lifestyle. I hope you do better with it than me and the one that I had.
Click to expand...
Charles, I live in the desert so right now trees are the least of my problems, the temp. probe is housed internally and the unit is designed to be mounted in direct sunlight so the solar cell can power the unit. According to the reviews on a score of 1-10 this unit scored a 9.6. So we will see.
 
I've had the Ambient Weather WS-1400-IP for several years and really like it. I'd like to replace it someday, since one of the three little cups on the anemometer broke off in a bad windstorm a couple of years ago. (Doesn't seem to affect the wind speed measurements, though.) I've only had to replace the batteries in mine once in the past 6 or 7 years. I suspect you and I get more sunshine than Jim does.

BTW, I discovered the mount for mine fits 3/4" EMT conduit, which also conveniently fit the Dish Network bracket that was left on our roof by the previous owner. I used an 8' length of EMT to get the head unit well above anything that could be blocking it from the wind (in our case, the chimney).

Are you planning to link yours up to Weather Underground? Here's mine:

Personal Weather Station Dashboard | Weather Underground

Weather Underground provides local & long-range weather forecasts, weather reports, maps & tropical weather conditions for locations worldwide.
www.wunderground.com
 
I've got a davis vantage vue. Would probably like to upgrade to the pro version someday. My weather vane broke on this one time, but I found some parts online and fixed it.

I upload to a number of services and ahve my own custom site. The one thing I added to my site was a purple air quality sensor last year after all the fires we had.

https://www.palominovalleyweather.com/index.html
 
It up and running. Here is the outdoor sensor unit.... you can see my Starlink dish in the background

20221001_143330.jpg

And here is the indoor display. I am still playing around with the set up and setting up the account with Weather Underground. I have the account but I think it need to be sending data for at least 2 hour before it will show up.


20221001_143243.jpg
 
Don how about just getting a Navajo weather station.... get a rock, tie a string to it and hand from a cross bar, it the rock is wet, it's raining, if it's swing back and forth, the wind is blowing and if it's white, it's snowing. :D:cool:
 
I've had home weather stations for 20+ years. Some were better than others. For many years now, I've had an Acurite 5n1 that works great. The only issue with any station in our yard is trees all directions, but all other readings are good. It's on a 20' pole about 20' from our house, tied to a post of our carport. I added a remote battery box to it years ago so I don't have to lower it when the batteries get weak. It's on Weather Underground.
 
I completed the setup of the weather station and got it talking to Weather Underground. Here it is.

Personal Weather Station Dashboard | Weather Underground

Weather Underground provides local & long-range weather forecasts, weather reports, maps & tropical weather conditions for locations worldwide.
www.wunderground.com
 
I've got the acurite 5 in 1 also. Been pretty happy with it. My wife's grandfather uses the stock tank in the front yard to know how much rain we've had. He'll drain it down before a storm. It fills up off the gutter from the front of the house, so I'm not sure how he gauges the amount of rain other than his experience. He'll comment that we got an 1.25" of rain, and I'll compare to what the acurite says and he's always dead on. :huh: :dunno:

Anyway, I've been trying to run a raspberry pi using WeeWx. The acurite connects via the usb cable and WeeWx will run a local web server & upload to various weather sites, including weather underground. I've been having some issues with it dropping and not reconnecting, so need to work through that. I may just connect it to my windows pc at the house though as I haven't had time to learn WeeWx. I had planned to setup a web page with some creek level monitoring and such for the neighbors in our valley to check on.
 
Darren Wright said:
Anyway, I've been trying to run a raspberry pi using WeeWx.
Click to expand...
That's what I'm running mine on.
Basically a raspberry pi connected to my base station. I do have an ssd connected to it to use for all the storage instead of an sd card, as the sd cards aren't supposed to be as reliable as an actually 'drive'

Mine stays up for months and months at a time without issues. I do have a little fan running on it though.

I love weewx. A little tricky to configure at first, but a very nice templated based approach.

Ignore the dust, lol. The little box on top is the pi, the one on the bottom just holds the interface between the pi and davis base station, a serial -> usb converter, and the little ssd stick.

It's not that close to the router, but the wifi connection stays up pretty reliably.


1664985665434.png
 
This discussion of weather stations seemed to spark the idea I needed one. For what ever reason all of a sudden I have all sorts of advertisements for weather stations as side bars I did not do any search for them they just showed up. This forum is the only place that has had this topic. Go figure.
David
 
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