Weather Station

[Platokidd]

This past xmas I got a weather station for the house, kinda cool.
Anyway now I plan on adding a pws to the campsite.

Figured I could add the Ws-2902A or another pws to the ladder on the camper or possibly installing on a 10' pole.

This would allow me to monitor the the weather at camp and the inside temp from anywhere..

Anybody ever do this?

[Scrapper]

I did for 1 season. I had it on the top of my camper on a 3' stand I made from 2x2 pt lumber. It was not anchored down and worked good. But at the end of camping season I covered the camper so I brought it home. If you have a battery powered pws you will need to change the batteries at least twice a year. On my Lacrosse WS-2310TWC I had to change the batteries (2x AA, 1x 9v) too often during the winter. Even after changing them in the fall.

I have a solar powered AcuRite 01536C mounted at the house and a wired battery powered Lacrosse WS-2310TWC and wireless battery/solar Lacrosse C86234(WS-2800) stored in my garage. I've been thinking about setting up the Lacrosse C86234 at the camper with the display panel in a plexiglass box so anyone walking by can use it. I have an account with Weather Underground / WUHU but haven't set it up for the new pws so it's not broadcasting to the weather underground site. The Weather Channel bought up Weather Underground.

[Platokidd]

Just purchased the Ambient WS-2000.

Will be installing the Ws-2000 at home and move the WS-2902a to the campsite. Both models use the same sensor array, so this should be easy enough, just in case I don't want to climb on my roof at home.

Still working on install options at camp. I could add the psw to the ladder on the camper and extend it up 3 or 4 feet above the roof line. Other option would be to install on a 10" pole on the back side of my site.

[NJKris]

Cool. Fellow weather nut here, KNJWASHI3 on wunderground. Looks like a nice little station. My main station is a Davis Vantage Pro2+ at home. Made the mistake of buying an Acurite for the RV. It was complete garbage. The temp and humidity was off and non-calibratable. But the worst thing was it was supposed to link to wifi and download the latest local forecast from Darksky. It could not even do that right, the forecasts were grossly off for my zip code. Thankfully, I was able to get my money back on that one.

[Scrapper]

The collapsible painter poles work well for setting up the pws.


My station was KWIRIO1 on wunderground but it has not been connected for a couple of years now. Out of the 3 different pws I have, none seem to be happy with satellite internet.

[Platokidd]

Originally Posted by NJKris

Cool. Fellow weather nut here, KNJWASHI3 on wunderground. Looks like a nice little station. My main station is a Davis Vantage Pro2+ at home. Made the mistake of buying an Acurite for the RV. It was complete garbage. The temp and humidity was off and non-calibratable. But the worst thing was it was supposed to link to wifi and download the latest local forecast from Darksky. It could not even do that right, the forecasts were grossly off for my zip code. Thankfully, I was able to get my money back on that one.

Congrats on owning a Davis and I am a little envious to be honest.

Davis Vantage Pro2+ pws are very nice and probably the top of the line in the home market for quality. If that unit had more eye candy to the console I would have went for it. Maybe buy the time I buy my next pws Davis will have upgraded the console.

I'm still rather a rookie with pws even tho I'm on my 3rd unit since xmas. The first unit was a Lacrosse purchased at Costco. That unit was garbage and I had nothing but problems with it, so back it went.

WU KILPLATO3

[Platokidd]

Originally Posted by Scrapper

The collapsible painter poles work well for setting up the pws.


My station was KWIRIO1 on wunderground but it has not been connected for a couple of years now. Out of the 3 different pws I have, none seem to be happy with satellite internet.

The smallest mount the WS-2902 array will handle is 1" O.D.(I think) and that's with the lowest setting on the mount. Would like to go with at least 1.5" pole of some type, maybe pvc.

Will see how it connects at the cg. I will be connecting to the cg wifi and I'm not sure what they use to connect to the web. Hopefully I have no problems, to be honest I did not think of that...

Glad I finally smoked out some interest on the forum

[dalford]

Originally Posted by Scrapper

The collapsible painter poles work well for setting up the pws.


My station was KWIRIO1 on wunderground but it has not been connected for a couple of years now. Out of the 3 different pws I have, none seem to be happy with satellite internet.

I have the Davis at home and am looking to add a less expensive unit to my RV. I was thinking painter pole also but after looking at the pole my concern was it stable enough? I know the anemometer needs a stable pole or as the wind blows hard and the whole station wobbles a little in the wind it will counter the spin of the anemometer and the wind speed accuracy will be off. Do you have this issue? What pole did you use? Thx...

[NJKris]

The first unit was a Lacrosse purchased at Costco. That unit was garbage and I had nothing but problems with it, so back it went.

Yup! Lacrosse and Acurite, both garbage. My Davis has been running without a hiccup at least 10 years, probably longer. I did send it back to them for recalibration after the first 5 years. I like that all the sensors are super accurate. I started with the basic station, then added a daytime fan aspirated radiation shield. Then the solar radiation sensor.I agree the console is pretty boring, and I wish they would update it, but it's the information that counts, and I know my readings are spot on. For the RV, I guess I only care about temp and dew point. At home, I need the rain gauge to know how much supplemental irrigation I need on the crops. Also good for an idea if the basement will start taking water.

I have an old sensor tripod from an old wired Davis Vantage somebody gave me, that would work well. Fold up the legs for travel, then stake it to ground at your campsite. That would be too much effort for me when I'm camping though.

[Scrapper]

Originally Posted by dalford

I have the Davis at home and am looking to add a less expensive unit to my RV. I was thinking painter pole also but after looking at the pole my concern was it stable enough? I know the anemometer needs a stable pole or as the wind blows hard and the whole station wobbles a little in the wind it will counter the spin of the anemometer and the wind speed accuracy will be off. Do you have this issue? What pole did you use? Thx...

I used the 1-1/4" OD 6' fiberglass handle someone threw out at the scrapyard I worked at. It's all I needed to mount the AcuRite 01536C to the peak of my house.

At the moment the Lacrosse C86234(WS-2800) anemometer is mounted 4' above ground and the AcuRite is 36' above ground, temperature and wind readings match without compensation in calibration.

The Lacrosse WS-2310TWC and Lacrosse C86234(WS-2800) both have options to calibrate. Besides, the weather people at the local tv stations are not that accurate so I figure 1 or 2 degrees off won't make that much difference. Also I installed the pws so I can have wind speed and direction for when I'm flying my rc airplanes and collective pitch helicopter.

[Platokidd]

WU Kilrockf100

[Scrapper]

Looks good, how stable it the unit on the pole?
I'm thinking about taking the La Crosse WS-2310TWC back to the camper. The outdoor sensors are wired together but wireless to the panel. I will need to trim a branch if I mount it to the ladder. I also thought about extending the tv antenna mount for the sensors.

[Platokidd]

Pole is 5' Schedule 40 PVC. There is just a slight tad bit of jitter with the pole. So far no false reads with the rain gauge and I'm please with it's location thus far.

More concerned about false reads with the temp in hot weather. The bird sits about 3' plus above the roof and 5' away from the a/c unit. I'm limited as to location with the array as I have near total tree coverage on my cs.

The console and array sensors have a 300' working distance with under 100' recommended. Ideally and considering, moving the array to an open field behind my cs. Not sure if owners of the cg would approve.

The cg will be adding a link to the weather station on their website soon, so that's cool.
WU is having major update pains so it may be link to ambient. https://dashboard.ambientweather.net...cf27e1696b04d6

[Scrapper]

The owners may be fine with you moving the ws to the open area since they are going to link to it. I had thought about asking my cg owners if I could mount the WS-2310TWC to their antenna tower by the store. It is an older model that needs connected to a computer through a serial cable for internet data uploads. I have a old laptop with a damaged screen that is set up with Win XP dedicated to the pws. It has an external 14" touchscreen from the old car shredder operators panel attached via visa cable.

Since homeland security has become involved with the Citizens Weather Observer Program (CWOP) (https://www.wxqa.com/) the service has been having problems keeping connection to pws around the country. In the beginning data was routed through CWOP to WU. Since then The Weather Channel bought WU a couple years ago and seems to have been having bad luck staying connected since.


Edit : It looks as though I might have to sign up again to WU. I was checking out the site through TWC and it says my registration is no longer the same as when I first registered. User and pass generation has been changed. I wonder if Weather Underground ID: KWIRIO1 will be the same.

[Platokidd]

Weather Underground finally has made some progress here with naming.

https://www.wunderground.com/dashboa...ocalwx_pwsdash

Hope to have the WU widget on cg website soon....

[NJKris]

I am so mad they RUINED WU. I even emailed Doctor Masters and complained. Seems like TWC is intent on destroying WU.

[Platokidd]

Over the winter I planned for some upgrades to my pws.


I upgraded my console from the WS-2902a to a Ws-2000c. Also will be adding a sensor to monitor my fridge temp WH31.

This will allow me to see how cold my beer is while I'm away, hope it works. and with fridge problems in the past I feel the need to know..



Last year I was amazed just how hot it was in the camper when I'm not there..


Will also be uploading to CWOP that send data to a gazillion places.


CG is open to us seasonal folks now, thus hope to install the pws soon.

[BriaBeck]

Originally Posted by NJKris

I am so mad they RUINED WU. I even emailed Doctor Masters and complained. Seems like TWC is intent on destroying WU.

I agree! WU took over Intellicast, which was very very good. So I had to adapt to WU... which is complete total GARBAGE. I don't even attempt to look at WU anymore, I got so fed up with it.



I'm an airline pilot, and intellicast powered WSI, which is a weather service used in the Aviation industry... now, the government run NWS is the best on the block, at least for now. If there is something better, please let me know!!!

[NJKris]

I have my data going to WU, CWOP, and MADIS. At least I can see all my historical data for past 10 years on WU, but they've dumbed it down so much it's disgusting.