Primarily for general aviation discussion, but other aviation topics are also welcome.
By JonBoy
#1885661
Hi, My neighbour wants to buy his brother a home weather station for Christmas and has asked me for advice. Sadly there couldn’t be a worse person than me to ask as I haven’t got a clue about them! I’ve seen a few over the years at smaller airfields but that’s as far as I go!
Just wondered if anyone might be an enthusiast, or maybe involved with an airfield that has equipped with one? Any help with where to look to buy, or even a recommended model would be much appreciated. (He said it’s the sort of thing where you would bolt the apparatus on the gable of the house….!)
Cheers!
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By Andrew Sinclair
#1885667
I agree with @CloudHound, Davis are one of the best. I have a Davis VP2 mounted on a 30 ft pole on top of my office which uploads to the UK Met Office and Windy every 30 mins. It runs CumulusMX on a Raspberry Pi. It was a little project I was involved in for my daughter’s school years ago and it stayed!

Davis are the ones you see a top small airfield VCRs e.g Compton Abbas and Dunkeswell. In the UK Prodata are very helpful and knowledgeable.
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By Boxkite
#1885704
Totally depends on budget, the degree of accuracy required (or just for interest), whether you need wind (otherwise you don't need a pole), a recording ability, and whether it's intended to make it available on the internet.

And if you want cloud and visibility measurement then dig deep :D
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By PeteSpencer
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1885720
I used to have a weather station on a 2metre pole on top of a flat roof logstore:.

It transmitted wirelessly to my study in the old house,

There were a number of problems : The batteries didn't last long, the water balance gauge was very susceptible to wind and the whole shebang kept getting overgrown by creeper.

Getting up on top of the logstore roof to change batteries and hack away the creeper was a mega-faff so I lost interest and used BBC and avbrief instead.

Anybody want a 2 metre iron pole with flat welded and drilled base and guy wire loops at top? :roll:
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By Andrew Sinclair
#1885752
callump wrote:I’m running an Ecowitt weather station and it’s been very reliable and reasonably priced ( I paid £250). It uploads to weather underground and Met office WOW and also Ecowitt.net.

https://www.wunderground.com/dashboard/pws/IWHITB7


I have heard some good reports about Ecowitt stations recently on the weather forums :thumleft:
callump liked this
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By SafetyThird
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1886121
I bought an ecowitt station for our little farm a couple of years ago. Actually badged by a German company but identical unit. After 8 months the anemometer stopped working and, when I asked to return it for replacement, the German company told me that their warranty was only for EU countries and, as we'd just left, they wouldn't honour it.
Recently I bought a station for our airfield and went with a Davis Vantage Vue, £400, better built and warrantied and it's working very well on a pole above our hangar.
By Boxkite
#1886126
SafetyThird wrote:I bought an ecowitt station for our little farm a couple of years ago. Actually badged by a German company but identical unit. After 8 months the anemometer stopped working and, when I asked to return it for replacement, the German company told me that their warranty was only for EU countries and, as we'd just left, they wouldn't honour it.

Two good reasons to avoid that brand then.
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By NDB_hold
#1886578
The Germans do seem particularly keen to punish us. I needed a type approved towbar for my 2001 Jeep and had great difficulty finding one. Two companies in Germany had them but both said 'we could export one but you aren’t worth the trouble'. Eventually I found a company in Spain who were happy to take the business.