Looks like a precision aneroid barometer.

--
Bernard Burton
Wokingham, Berkshire, UK.


Satellite images at:
www.btinternet.com/~wokingham.weather/wwp.html
"SSpiers" wrote in message
...
Can anyone identify this barometer and give me some idea of how old it is
etc.
I bidded for it on Ebay so i can add it to my collection of strange met
instruments.
I came across a very similar item about 10 years ago at a met station at
Pease
Pottage Crawley.
Thank you in advance
Simon
http://i2.ebayimg.com/02/i/01/62/91/3d_1_b.JPG
Crawley Down weather station
http://hometown.aol.co.uk/morleyad/m...e/weather.html

Can anyone identify this barometer and give me some idea of how old it is etc.
I bidded for it on Ebay so i can add it to my collection of strange met
instruments.
I came across a very similar item about 10 years ago at a met station at Pease
Pottage Crawley.
Thank you in advance
Simon
http://i2.ebayimg.com/02/i/01/62/91/3d_1_b.JPG
Crawley Down weather station
http://hometown.aol.co.uk/morleyad/m...e/weather.html

In message , SSpiers
writes
Can anyone identify this barometer and give me some idea of how old it is etc.
I bidded for it on Ebay so i can add it to my collection of strange met
instruments.
I came across a very similar item about 10 years ago at a met station at Pease
Pottage Crawley.
Thank you in advance
Simon

It looks like a precision aneroid barometer from the 1960s. They were
the standard barometer on the Ocean Weather Ships.

Norman.
(delete "thisbit" twice to e-mail)
--
Norman Lynagh Weather Consultancy
Chalfont St Giles
England

"SSpiers" wrote in message
...
Can anyone identify this barometer and give me some idea of how old it is
etc.
I bidded for it on Ebay so i can add it to my collection of strange met
instruments.
I came across a very similar item about 10 years ago at a met station at
Pease
Pottage Crawley.
Thank you in advance
Simon
http://i2.ebayimg.com/02/i/01/62/91/3d_1_b.JPG
Crawley Down weather station
http://hometown.aol.co.uk/morleyad/m...e/weather.html

This was the the type of barometer that the Met.Office supplied for use on
Voluntary Reporting Mercant Ships that I served aboard during the 1970's,
and was well suited to any violent movement.

Nick Robinson.

Col Station Colchester NE2

Not so strange... as has been said, one of a number of models of Precision
Aneroids which replaced the Kew Pattern mercury barometers at UK Met Offices
sometime in the 70's or 80's
Cheers
John
--
York,
North Yorkshire.
(Norman Virus Protected)

"SSpiers" wrote in message
...
Can anyone identify this barometer and give me some idea of how old it is
etc.
I bidded for it on Ebay so i can add it to my collection of strange met
instruments.
I came across a very similar item about 10 years ago at a met station at
Pease
Pottage Crawley.
Thank you in advance
Simon
http://i2.ebayimg.com/02/i/01/62/91/3d_1_b.JPG
Crawley Down weather station
http://hometown.aol.co.uk/morleyad/m...e/weather.html

On 05 Apr 2004 20:45:14 GMT, (SSpiers) wrote:

Can anyone identify this barometer and give me some idea of how old it is etc.
I bidded for it on Ebay so i can add it to my collection of strange met
instruments.
I came across a very similar item about 10 years ago at a met station at Pease
Pottage Crawley.
Thank you in advance
Simon
http://i2.ebayimg.com/02/i/01/62/91/3d_1_b.JPG
Crawley Down weather station
http://hometown.aol.co.uk/morleyad/m...e/weather.html

Brings back memories - that's the old Precision Aneroid I know and love - I'm
buggered if I can remember how to use it - I think you had to rotate the large
knob until a neon light went out, and you read off the pressure (in mB) from a
mechanical tally counter type "digital" display.

I suspect the aneroid displacement was mechanically amplified and the wheel
operated a lead screw (as well as the counter) which contacted the aneroid
mechanism and completed an electrical circuit, turning on (or off) the neon?
light.

It was standard Met Office issue for outstations during my time (1965-1985) and
I suspect it originally dated from just after WW2, though this is a guess.

I had the pleasure of a short spell of duty at the Met Office radiosonde station
at Pease Pottage, where the boss used to make model guns and they had the
largest lead-acid battery I have ever seen outside of a telephone exchange,
charged up by a spectacular mercury arc rectifier. It was actually used to
generate hydrogen for the balloons.

JPG

"JPG" wrote in message
...
On 05 Apr 2004 20:45:14 GMT, (SSpiers) wrote:

Can anyone identify this barometer and give me some idea of how
old it is etc.
I bidded for it on Ebay so i can add it to my collection of
strange met
instruments.
I came across a very similar item about 10 years ago at a met
station at Pease
Pottage Crawley.
Thank you in advance
Simon
http://i2.ebayimg.com/02/i/01/62/91/3d_1_b.JPG
Crawley Down weather station
http://hometown.aol.co.uk/morleyad/m...e/weather.html

Brings back memories - that's the old Precision Aneroid I know and
love - I'm
buggered if I can remember how to use it - I think you had to
rotate the large
knob until a neon light went out, and you read off the pressure
(in mB) from a
mechanical tally counter type "digital" display.

I suspect the aneroid displacement was mechanically amplified and
the wheel
operated a lead screw (as well as the counter) which contacted the
aneroid
mechanism and completed an electrical circuit, turning on (or off)
the neon?
light.

It was a shiny green exclamation mark, wasn't it? The top bit got
longer (or
shorter, can't remember which) as you went past the actual pressure.
I remember when I first visited the auxiliary synoptic station at
Edgbaston
around 1970 as a student they had just taken delivery of their first
precision aneroid. When I worked there briefly some years later
they were still using the Kew Pattern Mk II (I think) as a "check"
at the
0900 observation. As if they couldn't quite believe that that ugly
little tin box
did the job just as well.

Philip Eden

.... if anyone has access to the "Observer's Handbook" 1969 edition or
later, then this instrument is covered there .. pp101 to 103, with a
nice diagram showing how it works etc. Also, if you have the Marine
Observer's Handbook, then there are a couple of photographs (Figure
6a/b) of same, and again the same diagram and description as above.

If you can't get hold of same, and need to refer to these data, let me
know and I'll arrange something.

Martin.

"Martin Rowley" wrote in message
...
... if anyone has access to the "Observer's Handbook" 1969 edition or
later, then this instrument is covered there .. pp101 to 103, with a
nice diagram showing how it works etc. Also, if you have the Marine
Observer's Handbook, then there are a couple of photographs (Figure
6a/b) of same, and again the same diagram and description as above.

If you can't get hold of same, and need to refer to these data, let me
know and I'll arrange something.


.... incidentally, I *think* the e-bay item is Mk I where you had to look
directly over the instrument; the Mk II, which was, IIRC, more widely
introduced into land-station use, had an *angled* display, making it
easier to put on the observing desk.

Martin.

On Tue, 6 Apr 2004 13:28:40 +0100, "Philip Eden" philipATweatherHYPHENukDOTcom
wrote:


"JPG" wrote in message
.. .
On 05 Apr 2004 20:45:14 GMT, (SSpiers) wrote:


It was a shiny green exclamation mark, wasn't it? The top bit got
longer (or
shorter, can't remember which) as you went past the actual pressure.

Absolutely right Philip, I remember now. I can only guess that it must have
been a variation of one of those green "magic eye" valves (vacuum tubes) you
used to get as a tuning guide on some old mains radios. A green fluorescence
used to migrate up a semicylindical electrode in response to a voltage input.
Because of it's age it would not be an LED, of course. It would demand a high
voltage battery or some form of charge pump circuit to achieve the high voltage
required to drive the tube.

Alternatively it could have been a simple mechanical obscuration of a low
voltage green light source.

I remember when I first visited the auxiliary synoptic station at
Edgbaston
around 1970 as a student they had just taken delivery of their first
precision aneroid. When I worked there briefly some years later
they were still using the Kew Pattern Mk II (I think) as a "check"
at the
0900 observation. As if they couldn't quite believe that that ugly
little tin box
did the job just as well.

I had some experience of the Kew Pattern as well. As I recall it's calibration
took account of the variation in mercury level in the reservoir, unlike the
Fortin barometer (used in my school physics lab) where you had to adjust the
reservoir mercury level by pushing up, via a screw, a chamois leather bag or
diaphragm acting as a base to the reservoir.

The Fortin barometer had the nasty habit, if you unscrewed it too far, of
releasing all the mercury in a silvery cascade onto the physics lab floor. This
happened to me and I was tasked, after being suitably admonished by the physics
teacher, with collecting all the widely-scattered mercury globules in a
teaspoon. A task that nowadays would have health and safety supremos up in arms
and litigation lawyers rubbing their hands in glee.

JPG

Philip Eden