Weather gizmos/home stations

[washman]

Not sure if there are other posts on this but for quite a few years now, in addition to 210 degree agitation strokes, arc-cuate transmissions, and cast iron cookware, I also dabble in weather stuff. Last year I took a course from my local NWS on how to be a trained storm spotter.

 

I have a 1975 edition of the Golden Guide to Weather and growing up in Indiana, we sure had all kinds of stuff year in and year out.  This of course was all before the "climate change" crisis.

 

Well, I've also had several home weather stations, from La Crosse to Oregon Scientific, and lately Acurite. I've had the unit below in pic now for almost 4 years and it has been a very solid, if somewhat basic unit. It is the 02038W and a major plus is that is is powered by a 5 VDC adaptor with 3 AA batteries to backup. I has forecasting ability and auto dim display feature plus you can manually calibrate the indoor temp and humidity, the outdoor temp and humidity and the barometer.

 

I mounted the sensor in a a solar shield from Ambient weather and put it on a 5 ft PVC pole in my yard.  Lithium batts ensure it xmits the signal (433mhz) when it is below zero outside.

 

Does anyone else have stuff like this? I know Davis makes some bollocking stuff, but it sho' is expensive.  Oregon Scientific is still a bit behind the rest in terms of their displays and I have the BAR208HGA unit beside my bed.

 

Please share!

 

[maytagbear]

I wish..........................

Jim Cantore was my home weather station, but I hear he bats for the other team.

Oh, well.

Lawrence/Maytagbear

 

[fan-of-fans]

Yep. I linked a thread I posted last summer, just in case you find anything interesting in there.

But always good to start some new discussion. And since then, I've gotten an Acurite station. I bought it on eBay for about $30. I think it gives some of the info yours has, no adapter or calibration, and it's an older one because it isn't color. But it gives indoor/outdoor temp, humidity, wind speed, barometric pressure and can forecast.

I keep it on the kitchen counter and mostly use it for the temp and wind readings. I have the outside unit mounted on the clothes line pole.

Around that time I bought a smaller Acurite unit at Walmart, it just gives the indoor and outdoor temp. I ordered a solar shield from Acurite for it and was thinking about putting it in the front somewhere to compare readings, but decided not to bother with having two units.

Also I downloaded the Weather Channel 4000 Simulator from Taiganet.com Love it, you can input the codes from the NWS observation stations you want on the map and it gives you a "Local on the 8s" forecast with your local forecast and all the conditions from the NWS stations you want. I found it a little difficult to set up, but once I got it all working, it's really fun.

Weather Gizmos

I've been interested in the weather esp lately and just before Irma hit I was looking at the weather stations you can buy. A relative had a basic one that measured inside and outside temp. It was a LaCrosse technology and had a transmitter unit mounted outside on the shed. I used to have a...

www.automaticwasher.org

 

[wayupnorth]

I have recorded daily weather as to what it is and high and low from the NWS at BIA. But if some one wants to put a cam to record the sunset, fine.

 

[rp2813]

My sister gave me a Smart Gear Weather Station a few years ago. I use it with a 5-volt power adapter but it also runs on AAA batteries.  It's pretty basic.  Indoor temp and humidity, outdoor temp and humidity (via wireless remote sending unit with range up to 200'), day, date, time, (including an alarm/snooze feature) and a forecast graphic, all displayed on a LCD screen with two brightness settings.  Bonus is a USB port that I use to charge my phone. 

 

Sometimes I think it reads a little high on the outdoor temp, and for sure it reads high on the indoor temp because I have the display propped up against the side of a shelf and I think it generates enough heat to skew the indoor conditions.

 

Also, the forecast graphic is stuck on the "everything" display, with a cloud, another cloud with rain and lightning coming out of it, and a sun.  I haven't bothered to unplug it to see if it will reset.  Due to a marine influence around 85% of the time, even when the forecast display worked properly it never was very accurate.

 

 

 

[countryguy]

My bf gave me an Acu-Rite system for Christmas. It has been pretty accurate. I did have to calibrate the indoor temperature as I found it was reading high compared to the several other thermometers that I have in the house including a coupe of others in the same room. The outdoor temperature reads comparable to my other thermometer with outdoor sensor. I have the sensor hanging on a 4 inch wire suspended from the eave of the house, out of direct sunlight on the north side of the house and protected from rain/snow. The Acu-Rite records highest and lowest indoor and outdoor temps. and humidity every day...it resets at midnight. It also records the date of the highest/lowest temps & humidity from the last time it was reset. It has 3 levels of brightness as well as autodim, adapter and battery backup.

Gary

 

[washman]

here's the weather shield

This has made a huge difference in outdoor accuracy as it keeps the bright sun off the sensor.

 

[mattl]

I have a couple of Weather Direct units from LaCrosse that I've had for years.  They are connected to my home network for forecast and alerts.  Last fall they stopped working, it's happened before and it can be a pain to get them sync'd, so I let it go.  the other day I thought I'd get them back up and running.  Nothing I did worked.  Then I stumbled across a web page on their site that they posted an EOL statement.  They killed the updates as of 8/31 last year.  I had an old email address on their site and never got the message.  Apparently  they were giving out free equipment to replace the units but I may have missed out on that.

 

[petek]

I have numerous wireless indoor/outdoor units around. Nothing really fancy though, just fairly basic . I usually find them on my rounds of thrift stores and clearance sections in other stores for little cost. I do have one called UPM, wireless weather station which I bought oh geeze maybe 5 or more years ago, it stores hi's and lows, humidity in and out etc.. and it seems pretty accurate, plus I don't think in all these years I've changed the batteries in and outside more than once, it just keeps going and going and going .

 

[tolivac]

I don't have any weather equipment-nor does the station---at this stage everyone just looks it up on the computer,pad,or phone under NOAA.

 

[askolover]

I gave my grandmother a weather thingy several years before she passed away.  I have it now, but it isn't installed.  I wonder if it will still work???  I need to dig it out of the closet.

 

[daveamkrayoguy]

My in-laws had some barometer-thermometer-hygrometer on their table by the couch in a small den, made by 'Oregon', and the sensor for the whole thing sat outside the front door, and they had to leave it behind when they moved out...

In one of my electronics classes in trade school, we attempted to build a weather station as a side project...

-- Dave

 

[fan-of-fans]

I remember my uncle had something that sounds similar to that. It had three gauges on a wooden board and I think either hung on the wall or was sitting on a side table in the dining room. I don't think it was anything electronic though, I always figured it just measured in whatever room it was placed.

Years ago I had another weather station that was one of those interesting toys Radio Shack used to sell. The whole thing was arrow shaped and sat on a small stake. Had a rain gauge, a tube with a ball that moved back and forth to show the wind speed, a thermometer with a moist cotton ball, and maybe one or two other things, and the whole unit blew around to show the wind direction.

That solar shield looks very close to what I ordered from Acu Rite, mine is a kind of pagoda shape with those plastic louvers. Can mount to a post/wall or hang on a string. My plan was to hang it from a short shepherd's hook in the front yard somewhere.

I do check TV/internet for the weather, but I like having a reading of the conditions right in the yard. Usually the temp is spot on with what they're showing on TV though. I figured being right next to a lake would make a difference in the temperature and humidity.