[TowerTalk] Weather station recommendations esp wind, direction and speed?

[Kevin Zembower]

I second the recommendation for Ambient (https://ambientweather.net/). I 
got their WS-2902A for Christmas, so, less than three months experience 
with it so far. I like it very much, except for some concerns:

  * The wind direction and speed sensors are mounted too close to the 
housing, so any snow over 3 inches stops both of them from turning.

  * The remote weather sensors (the outside unit) requires an AA 
battery, for a backup when the sun's not shining. I want to mount this 
unit on a mast at the peak of my roof (where the center-point feed of my 
40/20/10 fan dipole also mounts), but am not looking forward to an 
annual trip to the peak of my roof to replace the battery.

  * The wind direction sensor vane is not balanced by weight, so, if 
it's not absolutely level, it settles in the same direction when there's 
no wind. Right now, graphs seem to indicate a predominantly west wind at 
my home, when, in reality, the sensor unit is just a little out of level.

Overall, though, I'm very pleased. Didn't know about Peet instruments, 
but the Ambient station was about $170, less than the Davis units. Unit 
connects to my WiFi router, and reports my station's data to WUndergroud.

Let me know if anyone has any questions.

-Kevin
KC3KZ

On 2/26/19 12:00 PM, towertalk-request at contesting.com wrote:
> Message: 1
> Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2019 20:39:57 -0600
> From: Kim Elmore<cw_de_n5op at sbcglobal.net>
> To:towertalk at contesting.com
> Subject: Re: [TowerTalk] Weather station recommendations esp wind
> 	direction and speed?
> Message-ID:<15813242-0289-8272-a93c-3a6900104d1e at sbcglobal.net>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed
> 
> I'll add that as a research meteorologist, weather instruments are sort
> of a "thing" for me. Davis makes nice instrument sets, but sells each
> instrument separately, which makes it all more expensive but much more
> flexible in optimal placement. For example, most of us don't live 10 m
> above the ground and have more interest in air temperature/dew point at
> no more than 2 m above the ground.
> 
> I have a friend (another ham) that uses an Ambient weather station. It
> seems to hold up well and is accurate as any of the others for
> temperature, dew point/RH, pressure, and wind-speed/direction.
> 
> My Vantage Vue needed to have the anemometer element replaced after a
> few years because the bearings wore out, nut its very easy to do.
> 
> Some good reviews can be found athttp://weatherstationexpert.com/.
> Similar reviews may also be found athttps://www.weatherstationadvisor.com/.
> 
> Should money be no object and should you insist on research quality
> instrumentation, we use R. M. Young? instruments for most of our field
> projects. And you thought high-end transceivers were expensive...
> 
> Kim N5OP