Weather stations for the home.

[Wayne M.]

It's almost my birthday, and unless I speak up, it'll be another hokey dust collector. So, I'm looking for opinions on quailty decent weather stations. It should be wireless for less than 100'. Cover the basic parameters, have a nice wall mountable base, and PC connectivity would be real nice, to chart history, etc.



I know there are weather watchers in TDR land. Lets hear what works. Thanks as always.



W

 

[JR]

Oregon Scientific makes some real nice wall mount units. Mine is more on the basic side, indoor/outdoor temps, date, time, and keeps a record of highest and lowest temp within the last 7? Days (cant remember for sure). They have different models to choose from depending on what you want. Mines been trouble free for 7+ years now.

 

[Wayne M.]

I shoulda mentioned wind speed, direction in the parameters. Oregon is in my mind. Thanks.

 

[JR]

They have units that will tell you wind speed, wind direction, humidity, barometric pressure, and wind chill, just to name a few I can think of. I know theres alot Im missing. Like I said, mine is just the cheaper model. It was given to me as a present, if I would have bought it for myself I probably would have bought one with more bells and whistles.

 

[rscurtis]

I have a Davis Vantage Pro 2, made in USA and you can get parts and service for it. Currently sells for about $600, and goes up depending on optional features.

 

[BIGNASTY]

http://www.davisnet.com/weather/products/vantage-pro-professional-weather-stations.asp



Wayne

I didn't have a clue if this is a good unit or not, When I retired the Drivers,Mech's, got this for us as a gift come to find out it is a pretty nice one. I have a suggestion for you NO MATTER what system you get make sure that you can mount it far enough or high enough away from buildings the wind speed/direction works a bunch better and the other sensors will work much better also. The building deflects rain , wind the heat from the roof in the summer and in the winter all throw off the readings. The barometric pressure is of importance up here you can tell by it moving up or down the scale if bad weather is coming in the MT mountains it can be sunny and the next second its time to build an Ark and start gathering animals.



If you mount it on a pole like I did the range is cut down significantly if your taking the reading from inside the house,so be aware of that or if you want I think that our system you can go outside and hold the receiver out and get a reading from like 1000 ft. Its down loadable to your computer so you can get an average I have done that and the Local National Weather guy that takes info from his Commercial setup down the road and our setup are very close.



I still use the TRIED and TRUE method of looking out the window and if the snow is blowing horizontal YOU CAN DAMN WELL BET IT'S COLD but its kind of fun to know just how stupid I was for going outside at -30 to take care of the animals.



BIG

 

[Bill Stockard]

I have a Davis Vantage Pro 2, made in USA and you can get parts and service for it. Currently sells for about $600, and goes up depending on optional features.

I also have a Davis Vantage Pro 2 which has been in service for over 6 years. It reports the results wireless about 300-ft to a console in our house and also on the Internet to the Weather Underground every two seconds. I have had a couple minor problems with it over the past 6+ years and each time I contacted Davis Instruments, they promptly shipped the replacement part via USPS First Class at no charge to me.



This is a link to my weather station. http://classic.wunderground.com/weatherstation/WXDailyHistory.asp?ID=KTXMOUNT2

You can get the weather conditions in my back yard anytime and is updated every two seconds.



Bill

 

[mwilson]

I also have a Davis Vantage Pro 2 which has been in service for over 6 years. It reports the results wireless about 300-ft to a console in our house and also on the Internet to the Weather Underground every two seconds. I have had a couple minor problems with it over the past 6+ years and each time I contacted Davis Instruments, they promptly shipped the replacement part via USPS First Class at no charge to me.



This is a link to my weather station. http://classic.wunderground.com/weatherstation/WXDailyHistory.asp?ID=KTXMOUNT2

You can get the weather conditions in my back yard anytime and is updated every two seconds.



Bill

52 degrees??? 52 degrees??? I am now weather depressed... .....



It's a cool 0 degrees here now, trying to con Seth into going out to start Gizmo. It will be a good 15 miles before it starts throwing much heat tonight.



Mike.

 

[Wayne M.]

I also have a Davis Vantage Pro 2 which has been in service for over 6 years. It reports the results wireless about 300-ft to a console in our house and also on the Internet to the Weather Underground every two seconds. I have had a couple minor problems with it over the past 6+ years and each time I contacted Davis Instruments, they promptly shipped the replacement part via USPS First Class at no charge to me.

This is a link to my weather station. http://classic.wunderground.com/weatherstation/WXDailyHistory.asp?ID=KTXMOUNT2
You can get the weather conditions in my back yard anytime and is updated every two seconds.

Bill

Now that's nice. I heard Davis eq is the good stuff but maybe out of my range. How does the web deal work? Is that a Davis exclusive?

 

[JHumphries]

WeatherHawk
These guys are a little, okay alot expensive, but they are nice.
We have one on the pier where the subs moor.

 

[Alaskaskiff]

Not wireless, and not as expensive as those nice looking weatherhawks, but a real good choice is the PB200 by airmar. This is primarily a marine unit. Interestingly it calculates wind speed without moving parts.

http://www.airmartechnology.com/airmar2005/ex20/RMProducts/ElectCat.asp?ProdID=105&Page=Marine

 

[Bill Stockard]

Now that's nice. I heard Davis eq is the good stuff but maybe out of my range. How does the web deal work? Is that a Davis exclusive?

The Davis Weather Station console in our house is connected to our computer via a USB cable. The software came from Ambient Weather. http://www.ambientweather.com/software.html



I purchased our Davis Vantage Pro 2 weather station from Ambient Weather also. At the time I purchased my weather station, they had discounted the price of the Davis products.



Did you check my weather station and see all the weather data that is available?



Bill

 

[BIGNASTY]

WeatherHawk
These guys are a little, okay alot expensive, but they are nice.
We have one on the pier where the subs moor.

We use one of the weather hawk handheld wind meters it works pretty well in the mountains when calculating for a shot on game the only problem is that what is being shot at is sometimes 1/2 mile away, but it gives an idea of wind speed and direction

 

[JLEONARD]

I have an Oregon Scientific and it has been good for 4 years so far. I even had it on the boat for a season. It's mounted on my shed which is about 100 feet away from the readout screen. Only issue is that it's blocked a little from 2 directions so doesn't always give the correct wind speed.

 

[TJJEEPER]

http://www.davisnet.com/weather/products/vantage-pro-professional-weather-stations.asp


I still use the TRIED and TRUE method of looking out the window and if the snow is blowing horizontal YOU CAN DAMN WELL BET IT'S COLD but its kind of fun to know just how stupid I was for going outside at -30 to take care of the animals.

BIG

Big, You're NOT stupid for going to to tend the animals in -30 temps, you're protecting your investment! Good on ya for doing it.

I've been using a La Cross that was on sale at Costco a few years back. It does everything you're looking for.
It's the older version of this:
http://www.lacrosseweatherandmore.com/IVG2/Y/ProductID-245257-.htm
And best of all it was only $100 at Costco when we got it. I haven't seen them at Costco since.

 

[Wayne M.]

The Davis Weather Station console in our house is connected to our computer via a USB cable. The software came from Ambient Weather. http://www.ambientweather.com/software.html

I purchased our Davis Vantage Pro 2 weather station from Ambient Weather also. At the time I purchased my weather station, they had discounted the price of the Davis products.

Did you check my weather station and see all the weather data that is available?

Bill

Yes I did. Very impressive. So there's a direct link from the base to the PC. Then software. I really like that.
So to understand, you did not buy the Davis software $100+, you got ambient software? But you need someone's software to log on the PC.

 

[Wayne M.]

Ambient has good prices. I'm thinking about the vantage.

 

[Bill Stockard]

Yes I did. Very impressive. So there's a direct link from the base to the PC. Then software. I really like that.
So to understand, you did not buy the Davis software $100+, you got ambient software? But you need someone's software to log on the PC.

Wayne,

Yes, you will need some one's software. I used Ambient Weather's software. Click on the link I posted above and then click on "Virtual Weather". A page will come up showing the downloads for different weather stations. Go to the Davis block and click on "Download Now"

You will have to purchase the Weather Data Logger from Ambient Weather which is built in to the cable that connects the weather console to the computer. My weather station console is an older version and has a serial port instead of USB and I had to purchase an adapter to go from the Serial to the USB port on our computer.

Bill

 

[BIGNASTY]

Big, You're NOT stupid for going to to tend the animals in -30 temps, you're protecting your investment! Good on ya for doing it.



Sometimes I remind myself of this, I get to the barn open the door (that takes a snow shovel to do ) and the animals look at me like WHAT IN THE * H * ARE YOU DOING?? feed and clean the barn, the wife comes out kicking the door and yelling how did you get in without moving the snow? open the top half of the door take the coffee from her she crawls over the bottom half the door and we milk the cow and her goats. We harness up the boy's to the snow plow crawl over the bottom of the door again shovel out the big doors drive the team out put the wife and milk on the plow take them to the house. Over to my MIL/FIL to check them out and they look at me the very way the animals did WHAT THE * H * ARE YOU DOING ? With so many looking and thinking the same thing ONE HAS TO QUESTION THE SANITY OF THIS. :-laf

 

[JLeake]

I set up a weather station for the US Forest Service (all manual in 1972). I have not seen the specifications for mounting often. Attached is a commercial adaptation of the standards... . I only attach it so you know that siting weather station is not simple to make it really valid. If my file attachment does not work, the url for the document is ftp://ftp.campbellsci.com/pub/outgoing/apnotes/siting.pdf