An interesting discussion.
There is no doubt that the Davis weather stations are excellent and
top-of-the-line. You also pay for that quality.
I live in a very lightning vulnerable location on a ridgetop in
southwest NM. Over the years, I have had my share of lightning damage to
tower-mounted weather stations. For that reason, I tend to go with lower
cost weather stations, and accept that their life expectancy is highly
random. Until very recently, I was using a LaCrosse, and just recently
switched to an Acurite. No issues with RFI either to or from the unit. I
have a common complaint with both - the advertised range from the remote
unit to the base unit is grossly exaggerated. My experience is that if
you can get 100 feet, line-of-site, no obstructions, you are doing well.
(A friend described the range as "75 feet, or two solid walls, whichever
comes first")
If you are curious about what frequency your weather station is
transmitting on, or want to look at the signal strength, a
SDR-receiver-on-a-USB-stick works great. For example, you can get the
RTL-SDR receiver from multiple sources for under $15. With SDRSharp or
HDSDR free software, using a waterfall display around 434 MHz, the blips
from the weather station stand right out. (If you want to see an
interesting, RF-related project see
http://www.desert-home.com/2015/02/reading-acurite-5n1-sensor-set-this.html
. No, this is not my web page, although this guy is amazing, and should
be a ham !)
73,
Steve, N2IC
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