[aprssig] ***SPAM*** Re: Weather station hardware and software

[KF4LVZ]

It's probably best to go the route Steve describes by buying all the
sensors individually (whether through Peet and Davis or elsewhere) and
assembling a system from scratch.

For example, neither Peet nor Davis have ultrasonic anemometers (no
vanes or cups) but several other places do.  They're more expensive than
a rotary vane but, with no moving parts, will survive some extreme
conditions.  It does handle speed and direction simultaneously so
there's no need for a vane and a cup anemometer pair.

Same goes for many other instruments.  Plus, building your own allows
you to put in sensors that aren't normally part of a typical weather
station.  For example, I'm planning on getting a pyranometer to add to
my own station so I can record sunlight intensity.  I also am going to
add a soil moisture and temperature probe array for the irrigation system.

With all the DIY hardware out now (Raspberry Pi, Beagle Bone, Intel NUC,
Arduino, PICs, plus other vendor offerings, the list keeps getting
larger) it's just becoming so much easier to do. My temperature and
humidity sensor is an Ethernet attached module which gets polled via a
TCP/IP connection and pulled into a daemon.  The daemon then handles
connections from remote displays (whether those are browsers or LCDs).
The same will happen with the soil probes and pyranometer, Ethernet
connections to be polled by a daemon.


On 2015-02-21 07:27, Steve Dimse wrote:
> 
> On Feb 21, 2015, at 8:50 AM, Joel Kandel <kandelj at bellsouth.net>
> wrote:
> 
>> Steve, back in the early 2000's Broward Co emergency management
>> received a state grant to put up about a half a dozen Peet stations
>> hooked into the APRS ex network. We put them up in strategic
>> locations like Port Everglades and  number of municipal EOCs. In
>> 2005 Wilma came along and destroyed them all. We wanted to replace
>> them and asked Peet if they would consider manufacturing s more
>> hardened unit, even if it cost more. They said no. So we never
>> replaced the units. I don't understand Peet's marketing philosophy
>> when they know there is Adrian's for a better unit and they refuse
>> to meet it. All the best,
> 
> My first weather station was Davis, and it was destroyed in a
> surprisingly weak tropical depression long ago, but I've heard Davis
> is much better now. I had good luck with Peet, my anemometer was
> replaced (for free by them) after Georges, and survived the horrible
> 2004-5 seasons with just one lost cup in Wilma after recording 104
> mph wind, and is still going.
> 
> But as for the company, once Bill Peet sold the company and retired
> it went downhill. Last year at Orlando I had a long talk with the
> owner Dave about how far behind Davis they we, and how their fraction
> of new CWOP signups was decreasing rapidly. I gave him a Pi that
> showed what could be done cheap now, he acted interested, but never
> answered my followup emails, and then this year they did not even
> show at Orlando, the first time I've ever been there and they did not
> show, they are right down the road in St. Cloud. They do have a booth
> booked at Dayton, so they haven't given up on hams, but I fear hams
> have given up on them.
> 
> Their sensors are still decent for home use, but to expect them to
> hold up to Cat 3 hurricanes is a bit much, that kind of hardening is
> going to cost lot more. I know of two Davis anemometers that did not
> survive Wilma, my girlfriend at the time had one at her home is South
> Miami and another on her landscaping business lot in Homestead. The
> Davis costs $150 vs $100 for the Peet, so if they are going to be
> destroyed I'd rather have the one that costs me less. From an
> actuarial standpoint, costing 50% more means the Davis better survive
> better. Even more so if Peet produced something hardened, that is
> going to increase the cost greatly and few would pay it so their
> development costs would be spread across a smaller base.
> 
> Was the Adrian's in the last line autocorrect for "a demand"? I'm not
> sure how big that demand is. I would not pay more, replacing it is
> just one more tiny, low priority expense in the aftermath of a hit.
> If I were Peet I would publish a policy that if your anemometer is
> destroyed by wind we will replace it free. That seems like better
> marketing. But as I say, they seem to have little interest in moving
> forward.