 |
|
| uk.sci.weather (UK Weather) (uk.sci.weather) For the discussion of daily weather events, chiefly affecting the UK and adjacent parts of Europe, both past and predicted. The discussion is open to all, but contributions on a practical scientific level are encouraged. |
| Reply |
|
|
LinkBack | Thread Tools | Display Modes |
|
#1
July 6th 05, 10:17 PM
posted to uk.sci.weather
|
|||
|
|||
A slightly uncommon weather station requirement
Peter,
You could do worse than check out www.weatherstations.co.uk Jim. "Peter" wrote in message ... Hi All, I've downloaded the last 6 months of posts from this NG and read through all the weather station threads. Hopefully this one has not been covered recently. I am an experienced electronics hardware/software engineer. I've been using the standard retail weather stations, with a remote (wireless) outside temperature sensor, for a number of years. All of them were a pain, because the sensor battery lasts only a few months. I got OK results by wiring up a big lithium battery to the remote temp sensor, putting the sensor inside a sealed jamjar with a bag of silica gel, and hanging the whole contraption inside a tree in the garden! It works but obviously the response to temperature variations is rather slow... Anyway, the indoor part of the station usually packs up soon, and the wireless connection occassionally drops out. What I am after now is something of better quality (NOT another Oregon Scientific product, for example) with the standard graphical readout of inside and outside temp, humidity, and a bar graph showing the pressure. I am a pilot, and I normally set the millibar reading to match the QNH of the local airfield. So far, no problem. The Davis Pro product, about GBP 500 in the UK and 1/3 of that by mail order from the USA, seems to fit the bill. But how well is the electronics sealed? THAT is the #1 problem with these products. I've designed lots of outdoor electronics and sealing something so it lasts for years is not trivial. Every outdoor product I've ever bought, including any weather station sensors that I didn't put inside extra housings, have failed due to moisture ingress. Usually, the product is out of warranty by then, so it's another 150 quid in the bin. An anemometer (wind speed and direction) would be nice but it raises the question on the use of reed switches. These may have specs of millions of ops but not on the end of a long cable. If you have say a 20m cable, 100pF/m, and there is 5V across it, there will be a nice little spark across the switch whenever it closes, and eventually the contacts will weld. Then one has the potentially huge hassle of climbing up on the roof... Now the uncommon requirement. I would like to display the data from all this on a PDA (pocket/pc) or a tablet computer (XP) fixed on the wall. Davis do some software but they never answer emails. The problem is that - alongside the basic weather station data - I would like to also display a current synoptic (MSLP) chart e.g. the image (only) from http://www.met-office.gov.uk/weather/charts/index.html One way to do this would be to get a weather station whose interface is entirely on a PC; resize the display to make room for a www browser window, and run a script on the browser to provide an every-30 mins refreshed version of the chart. The other handy thing, done the same way, would be to display a satellite image (visible or IR) from one of the sat data sites. Another way would be to forget about a weather station, and just view the data from some online weather station nearby. That won't work well for temperatures unfortunately. However I don't really want to write a load of software for the PC end. The budget; perhaps £500 for the station itself. Any comments would be appreciated. Peter. -- Return address is invalid to help stop junk mail. E-mail replies to but remove the X and the Y. |
| Reply |
| Thread Tools | Search this Thread |
| Display Modes | |
|
|
Similar Threads
|
||||
| Thread | Forum | |||
| Wireless Weather Station / IROX WEATHER STATION | uk.sci.weather (UK Weather) | |||
| Slightly [OT] - weather in Eire | uk.sci.weather (UK Weather) | |||
| OT slightly: Weather strains international relations | uk.sci.weather (UK Weather) | |||
| Fairly clear, slightly hazy weather - Lookout Mountain & Mount San Antonio - view north from Anaheim Hills - 1/27/09 | alt.binaries.pictures.weather (Weather Photos) | |||
| A slightly uncommon weather station requirement | uk.sci.weather (UK Weather) | |||
Linear Mode
