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Inexpensive home weather stations?
#217216 08/04/08 05:43 PM
Joined: Oct 2003
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This is a long shot, but enough of us are into enough geeky hobbies that someone may have some input....

I've been an avid weather buff for as long as I can remember. Love the weather, watching storms, almost went to college for Meteorology, etc. Recently, I became a member of my local NWS office's SWOP team. It basically means that I email them with any sort of significant weather happenings in my area. Most specifically, rainfall totals. It's a neat program and I'd encourage anyone in the US that enjoys the weather to find out if their local office participates in this.

Anyway, I have had an indoor/outdoor thermometer/barometer station for a couple of years. Its sensors are not working very well and it's time to replace it. I want to upgrade to something that can do wind and rainfall, so I can be more helpful in the SWOP reports. So I'm looking at the low-end of home weather stations that include rain gauges and anemometers (wind). I can't justify spending $500+ on a Davis system, even though they are supposed to be the best. I'm looking at something in the $100-$200 range, like an Oregon Scientific WMR100 or a LaCrosse WS-2371U . Wireless is almost a necessity, as the best mounting place I have is surrounded by concrete which makes burying wires tricky.

The problem is that I keep finding very conflicted reports on these lower-end stations. Some reviews say they're all crap, while others say they work quite well. The WMR100 seems to get fairly consistently good reviews. But I do need one that is fairly accurate in terms of wind & rain.

So is anyone here a weather buff that actually owns a home weather station? I'd be very interested to hear about what model you have, how tricky it was to set up, and what you like and don't like about it.

Thanks!


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Re: Inexpensive home weather stations?
PeterChenoweth #217229 08/04/08 06:20 PM
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Cool thread!

Can't help you with your question, but my wife and I enjoy our own low-end weather station (rainfall totals by hour/day/week/month, temps). It helps us remember when to water the new trees.

Staying tuned to this thread!


Bears, beets, Battlestar Galactica.
Re: Inexpensive home weather stations?
PeterChenoweth #217298 08/05/08 02:10 AM
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We tried two in our field work over the years.
The first, a Radio Shack home job.
Virtually useless.
Its features never really worked, the computer program kept crashing. I'm surprised they ever sell junk like this at all.

The second one cost 5k.
Works amazing.
It got hit by lightning last week.


"Those who preach the myths of audio are ignorant of truth."
Re: Inexpensive home weather stations?
chesseroo #217300 08/05/08 02:24 AM
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Posts: 16,441
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Man, even God has something against scientists these days.

Re: Inexpensive home weather stations?
pmbuko #217307 08/05/08 02:55 AM
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Point taken. The anti-intellectual current in government, the media, and society in general is disheartening, to put it mildly.

To paraphrase the great Norm Peterson, "It's a dog-eat-dog world out there, and [they're] wearing Milk-Bone underwear."


Bears, beets, Battlestar Galactica.
Re: Inexpensive home weather stations?
medic8r #217860 08/12/08 03:47 PM
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An update....

I found a deal that I couldn't pass up. I bought this for $68 with free shipping. Yeah, $68. I actually think that might have been a pricing error, because Amazon's price is now $117. \:\) It's the same unit as the LaCrosse WS-2371U mentioned earlier, but for half the cost. At that price, even if it only works for a year I'll be happy. Dirt cheap for what it is, really.

I hooked it all up last night, and it seems to be working just fine. All of the instruments synced right up and I'm getting accurate readings, at least compared to the nearest NWS station. Of course, it's a sunny, windless day so it's hard to accurately test the wind & rain gauges.

The wireless range is very good. Better than expected. No problems at 85 feet & 4 walls. It can be hard-wired, and when you do that the update intervals fall to 8 seconds (instead of 30-60), which is great. May do that sometime, but somewhat a PITA given my setup.

I'll update this thread in the future once I've gone through a storm system with it to see how well it all works.




M80v2 | VP150v2 | QS8v2
SVS Pci+ 20-39
Emotiva UMC-1 & LPA-1
M22ti + T-Amp, in the Office
Re: Inexpensive home weather stations?
PeterChenoweth #217996 08/14/08 03:44 PM
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Now I've got it all hooked up to WeatherUnderground.com.

Seems to be working! ;\)

http://www.wunderground.com/weatherstation/WXDailyHistory.asp?ID=KILJACKS2


M80v2 | VP150v2 | QS8v2
SVS Pci+ 20-39
Emotiva UMC-1 & LPA-1
M22ti + T-Amp, in the Office

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