We (gliding club) would like to acquire an anemometer. We can't
afford a full weather station, much as we would like to, and the
most important thing we need to know about is the wind speed and
direction, rather than sunshine, temperature or precipitation.

Ideally we would like something which would take readings of the
wind speed at frequent regular intervals of less than a minute,
and provide an electronic record of the average wind speed and
maximum gust in the past x minutes, where x can be altered to
suit the current conditions. It would be useful if the record
could be easily downloaded to a PC.

What type of equipment would you suggest?

Anne
To reply replace the rock with my surname

On Sun, 5 Apr 2009 23:29:14 +0100, "Anne Burgess"
wrote:

We (gliding club) would like to acquire an anemometer. We can't
afford a full weather station, much as we would like to, and the
most important thing we need to know about is the wind speed and
direction, rather than sunshine, temperature or precipitation.

Ideally we would like something which would take readings of the
wind speed at frequent regular intervals of less than a minute,
and provide an electronic record of the average wind speed and
maximum gust in the past x minutes, where x can be altered to
suit the current conditions. It would be useful if the record
could be easily downloaded to a PC.

What type of equipment would you suggest?

One option that strikes a reasonable balance between cost and
reliability would be a basic Davis Wizard III weather station plus
data logger and PC link. This does provide an outside temperature
sensor in addition to wind speed/direction, but is primarily intended
for measuring wind data. Total cost is around the £400 mark inc VAT.

Note that this is a cabled station (ie the ansmeometer needs to be
cabled through to the console) and the small display console unit
provides live updates of current wind speed/dir every 2.25 secs.

The main Wizard station can be bought and used on its own for just
over half of the total cost, but won't give you logging and mean wind
speeds unless you also purchase the data logger unit. If you do have
the latter connected to a PC then the Summary screen of the
Weatherlink software will give you all of 1/2/10 minute mean wind
speeds as well as logging a permanent record of the data.So this
perhaps isn't quite as flexible as you're asking for, but ought to be
adequate in practice. (I don't know of any software that provides
complete flexibility in terms of setting the averaging period - it
wouldn't be difficult to write but I don't know of anything off the
shelf.)

John Dann
www.weatherstations.co.uk

One option that strikes a reasonable balance between cost and
reliability would be a basic Davis Wizard III weather station
plus
data logger and PC link. This does provide an outside
temperature
sensor in addition to wind speed/direction, but is primarily
intended
for measuring wind data. Total cost is around the £400 mark
inc VAT.

Thank you for the suggestion. However I fear that we cannot
afford that level of expenditure at the moment.

Are there any cheaper options around?

Anne

http://www.maplin.co.uk/module.aspx?...2-5&T=12431849
or
http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?moduleno=223254

mikej

Thanks, Mikej


http://www.maplin.co.uk/module.aspx?...2-5&T=12431849
or
http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?moduleno=223254

mikej

Anne Burgess wrote:
Thanks, Mikej


http://www.maplin.co.uk/module.aspx?...2-5&T=12431849
or
http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?moduleno=223254

mikej



I probably should have added that I bought the second one and it works
fine. It also was on special offer at £70 until recently. The first one
doesn't have USB/PC interface.
mikej

The cheap and cheerful option always looks appealing. I am first to admit.
When it comes to safety and aviation I am somewhat surprised to hear that a
£400 expenditure is considered too much. I believe inthe addage you get what
you pay for . I have owned Davis instruments for 10 years now and have
little trouble. I doubt whether the cheap and cheerful equipment will give
you trouble free and accurate readings for this length of time, so
realiabilty, accuracy and robustness must be considered when purchasing any
wind recording equipment. £400 is not expensive when you consider most
professional recording equipment at airfields

Rob

"Mike James" wrote in message
. uk...
Anne Burgess wrote:
Thanks, Mikej


http://www.maplin.co.uk/module.aspx?...2-5&T=12431849
or
http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?moduleno=223254

mikej



I probably should have added that I bought the second one and it works
fine. It also was on special offer at £70 until recently. The first one
doesn't have USB/PC interface.
mikej

On Tue, 7 Apr 2009 at 10:50:23, Mike James
wrote in uk.sci.weather :

Anne Burgess wrote:
Thanks, Mikej


http://www.maplin.co.uk/module.aspx?...wsletter&U=09P
02-5&T=12431849
or
http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?moduleno=223254

mikej


I probably should have added that I bought the second one and it works
fine. It also was on special offer at £70 until recently. The first one
doesn't have USB/PC interface.
mikej

I can't understand why any weather station nowadays would lack a USB
connection - but many seem to.

Also, even many of the mid-price ones have a ridiculously low storage
capacity - only around 170 data sets. I wouldn't touch anything that had
less than ten times that!
--
Paul Hyett, Cheltenham (change 'invalid83261' to 'blueyonder' to email me)

Thank you for your input and advice.

The cheap and cheerful option always looks appealing. I am
first to admit. When it comes to safety and aviation I am
somewhat surprised to hear that a £400 expenditure is
considered too much.
In principle, I agree. However at the moment, unfortunately, we
are extremely strapped for cash at the moment owing to recent
changes in the regulations surrounding aviation - in brief,
officialdom is applying to gliders the same maintenance and
certification rules that apply to jumbo jets, which involves us
in huge additional expenditure this year, and ongoing higher
costs for ever.

I believe inthe addage you get what you pay for.
Correct.

I have owned Davis instruments for 10 years now and have
little trouble.
I do not doubt it.

I doubt whether the cheap and cheerful equipment will give you
trouble free and accurate readings for this length of time, so
realiabilty, accuracy and robustness must be considered when
purchasing any wind recording equipment.
We do not wish, intend or require to keep long-term weather
records. We are interested solely in the current wind strength
and especially gusting within the past, say, 30 minutes, so that
we can take that into consideration when the wind is approaching
limits. We have no problem assessing the average wind strength,
but is is much more difficult to assess the strength of gusts.

£400 is not expensive when you consider most professional
recording equipment at airfields
Indeed not.
We are, however, a small entirely voluntary club operating
mainly at weekends, and cannot justify installing the sort of
equipment that would be necessary at a full-scale airfield.

Anne

On 10 Apr, 09:19, "Anne Burgess" wrote:
Thank you for your input and advice.

The cheap and cheerful option always looks appealing. *I am
first to admit. When it comes to safety and aviation I am
somewhat surprised to hear that a £400 expenditure is
considered too much.

In principle, I agree. However at the moment, unfortunately, we
are extremely strapped for cash at the moment owing to recent
changes in the regulations surrounding aviation - in brief,
officialdom is applying to gliders the same maintenance and
certification rules that apply to jumbo jets, which involves us
in huge additional expenditure this year, and ongoing higher
costs for ever.

I believe inthe addage you get what you pay for.

Correct.

I have owned Davis instruments for 10 years now and have
little trouble.

I do not doubt it.

I doubt whether the cheap and cheerful equipment will give you
trouble free and accurate readings for this length of time, so
realiabilty, accuracy and robustness must be considered when
purchasing any wind recording equipment.

We do not wish, intend or require to keep long-term weather
records. We are interested solely in the current wind strength
and especially gusting within the past, say, 30 minutes, so that
we can take that into consideration when the wind is approaching
limits. We have no problem assessing the average wind strength,
but is is much more difficult to assess the strength of gusts.

£400 is not expensive when you consider most professional
recording equipment at airfields

Indeed not.
We are, however, a small entirely voluntary club operating
mainly at weekends, and cannot justify installing the sort of
equipment that would be necessary at a full-scale airfield.

Anne

Agreeing with the above comments re robustness, etc (most of these
cheap plastic toys won't last longer than a year or two in a
reasonably exposed position, such as I'd expect on an airfield rather
than a suburban garden), but you should also factor in exposure and
how you wish the readings (direction and speed, mean and gust) to be
displayed in your choice of unit.

Clearly it'll need a good all-round exposure (which probably means
some form of wireless sensor unless you can conveniently locate it
above a roof of e.g. control tower or similar structure), but more
important is the height. Standard exposure is 10 m of course, exposing
at a lower height or in an obstructed location can give dangerously
misleading under-indication of mean and gust speeds - very important
for light and relatively fragile craft such as gliders - both on
takeoff, approach/landing and of course parked on site. Might be best
to consider available exposure options, and how the sensor needs to
communicate with e.g. control tower display (wired/wireless), before
finally deciding on an instrument.

HTH.

--
Stephen Burt
Stratfield Mortimer, Berkshire