Weather Stations

[Ron]

Hello,

I received a weather station for Christmas, a Sam's Club special La Crosse WS-2317, and just ordered the rain gage and PC interface. 

I am just looking for input from anyone who has a weather station, not particularly this model, but just suggestion on setup and operation or any other suggestions you might have?

Right now I just have it temporally set up with the wind anemometer on a small pole in the middle of the yard.  I eventually plan on mounting it on the roof away from any obstructions or anything that might interfer with the wind flow.

Any suggestions or ideas would be appreciated,

Ron

[lindendave]

Ron,

I also have a La Crosse weather station, La Crosse WS-2310 from the Weather Channel, and have it mounted temporarily also. Someday when I get my observatory completed I 'think' I will move it out there...the wife is starting to like having it in the house. I mounted my anemometer to a length, tall enough to extend above the roof peak, which is bolted to one of the bathroom vent pipes. I figured the PVC would prevent it from becoming a lightening rod! 

The Thermo-Hygro sensor is just outside a kitchen window and within 4-5 feet of the base station. At the time I didn't want to drill any holes in the house for the direct wire method of hooking it all up so I'm using the 433MHz connection. This arrangement has worked out well for the seven months it has been installed here at the house. One thing I did notice with the Thermo-Hygro sensor with my mounting location, west side of a section of privacy fence running N/S along my deck, was that late afternoon sun drastically affected the temperature readings. To rectify this problem I built a housing that creates shade for the west and north sides of the sensor and this has helped quite a lot.

I have not installed the software so I can't speak to that part of the station. I do run the base on house current with the batteries installed for backup.

My only complaint about the station is the reset feature for the rain gage...or the country where the manual was written by someone who didn't know how to translate their language into English very well. So far I have not figured that part out and usually end up resetting the whole thing at the beginning of each month. 

If you're a gadget, and I think you are, person you will enjoy having the current weather when ever you want!

[Ron]

Thanks Dave,

A very helpful reply

That's a good idea about the PVC for the mast.  I'm not sure where I'm going to locate the components yet but you give me some things to look out for.

I don't have any alarms set but for some reason the barometric pressure keeps alarming after a .09 inch drop or rise.  I might raise the limits up a little more and see what happens.

My sensor is about 40 feet away from the main unit and it is on battery power.  I don't know if mine can be hooked up to a power supply or not, I'll have to check.

 You're right about the instruction, they aren't the easiest to understand.

Thanks again for the info, I'll probably be back for more

Ron

[lindendave]

Ron,

I neglected to comment about the rigidity of using PVC for the anemometer. Here at this house I found some left over PVC water line I used instead of buying new. It is a bit flexible and should I get the ambition I need to find some way to stiffen it up a bit, perhaps inserting a length of wooden dowel rod into it. I would need to reroute the lead coming from it as right now I have it inside the PVC and don't have a long enough drill bit to open up a dowel.

I have never set any alarms on my station and really don't see a need to so I haven't tinkered with those features. Sorry if I didn't make how mine operates clear...the outside sensors only operate on battery. The base station does have the ability to operate on either source of power and I chose to install batteries while running on house current so should there be an outage I would have them for a back up source of power.

If your rain gage will be like mine there is no provision on the base for mounting it! Right now I have mine sitting on the railing of the deck, in a clear spot, and held there by some very large tie straps left over from when I worked for a living. The base of the unit does have a 'step' that one could make brackets out of aluminum angle to secure to their chosen location but original mounting provisions would have been nice. You probably won't have to be concerned but I have noticed that it is possible for snow to get in the gage and register as precipitation!

[Ron]

You probably won't have to be concerned but I have noticed that it is possible for snow to get in the gage and register as precipitation!

If that happens I'm moving south

I have my inside unit, main station, operating on the power supply and battery backup also.  I'll try to find the most rigid PVC I can, if not I might do like you suggest with reinforcing the pipe with a wooden dowel.

As soon as I get the rain gage I'll let you know what it looks like.

Thanks,

Ron

[lindendave]

I did some Googling and it would appear that if I had looked at La Crosse's FAQ I would have seen how to mount the gauge!

"On the bottom of the sensor there are 4 holes. You can use those holes to screw the gauge into something. First remove the cover. You have to push in the tabs on the sides and then pull the cover off. There will be a teeter-totter the has a metal bar for an axis. Pull the metal bar out with a pliers. The teeter-totter can then be removed giving you access to the screw holes. Make sure that you do not screw them in too tight because that will cause your teeter-to malfunction. Then you can reinstall the teeter-totter making sure that it is put in the exactly the same way that it was taken out. Then put the cover back on."

I guess I had one of those guy moments...don't bother to read! 

[Ron]

Rain gage arrived today but no rain in the forecast

So I tested it out with my own rain making abilities, a trusty cup of water   Looks like it registers .01" of water with each dump

Still trying to come up with a good place to locate all of the devices.  I might try building a box on a post and locating everything out in the open in the backyard.

I haven't installed the software for Heavy Weather yet.

Ron

[lindendave]

I didn't bother to re-read the posts to see if I said where I have my anemometer mounted. It is attached, temporarily, to the vent pipe for our bedroom bath. When I used to build test trucks for GM we used really heavy-duty tie straps for all the laptop and sensor wiring throughout the vehicle. They're about 3/8" x 18" and it took two in series to make it around the 3/4" and 4" PVC pipes. The last couple days we have had some really strong winds and I'm now hearing the sound of PVC against PVC up there...guess it's time to climb back up on the roof!  The flexure from not having a rigid core in the 3/4" pipe is allowing it to wobble but I can't figure out how it is loosening nylon tie straps.

Learn from my adventures!  ...er, maybe that's challenges!

[Ron]

Dave,

I imagine the anemometer needs to be as high as it can so it isn't affected by wind deflection but it would probably take a pretty sturdy mast to support it so it isn't flopping around   As for why yours keeps loosening up is a mystery   Have you tried regular pipe clamps?

I'm having trouble resetting my Min Max on the total rain fall that I tested today.  The daily amounts reset ok but the total won't reset.  I guess it's back to the manual which doesn't seem to help me very much

Gotta get the software installed

Ron

[lindendave]

I'm having trouble resetting my Min Max on the total rain fall that I tested today.  The daily amounts reset ok but the total won't reset.  I guess it's back to the manual which doesn't seem to help me very much 

Yep, I had/have the same problem!  That's why I made the comment about the non-English speaking people translating the manuals. I did some digging on their website and came up with an additional note on the issue.

"Clear rainfall data

1. Press the MIN/MAX button to get into that mode.

2. Press the Display button until just the TOTAL Rain and the TIME and DATE are displayed.

3. Then press the - (minus) button until it rests to zero.

4. DO NOT press any buttons until it returns to the regular display."

Personal Note

Number 3 should say 'press and hold'

I hope that will also work for your station. As for my anemometer mast it is about 3-4' tall and extends well above the ridge of the roof. I really do need to get back up there and do something about stiffening it up but to be totally honest when I notice it the most I'm usually horizontal on my mattress! 

[Ron]

Number 3 should say 'press and hold'

I hope that will also work for your station. As for my anemometer mast it is about 3-4' tall and extends well above the ridge of the roof. I really do need to get back up there and do something about stiffening it up but to be totally honest when I notice it the most I'm usually horizontal on my mattress! 

Dave,

That almost worked   Once I got to the rain gage page I had to hold the minus button and the display botton to get the reading to reset

Thanks,

Ron

[Ron]

Dave or anyone else with information.

I installed the Heavy Weather software for my weather station, luckily we are having a little bit of heavy today gusting to almost 40 mph, and I would like to hook up the interface cable to PC but the cable is not long enough
I can't find any information for extending the PC cable in the manual or on La Crosse's web site.

Does anyone have any Ideas or suggestion about extending the PC cable?

Any help would be appreciated.

Ron

[lindendave]

Ron,

You're ahead of me there, I haven't installed the software. This Toshiba laptop I have been using is one of the newer flavor devoid of serial ports and the USB/Serial converter I picked up doesn't want to play well with most things attached to it, like my scope! 

One of these days I'd like to track down a Keyspan as Doc and others swear by them, mine just makes me want to swear at it!


I pulled out the box and looked at the PC cable. What you might try is getting a phone entension inline adapter and a length of cord. If your cable is like mine you can see through the RJ connector to check wire colors. I think if you can talk to the station from your PC then it works, kind of like extending the cords for controlling LX200GPS scopes. I would think too much cable and you will get line interference though so I'd guesstimate 20' or less should work.

[Ron]

Thanks Dave,

The telephone line coupler works just fine, but I don't think 20' is going to give me enough length to stretch from the family room to the computer room

I like having the base station in the family room but I also like the PC hook up since it gives me the total picture of what is taking place without scrolling through the menus

Some of the programs that came with the Heavy Weather software is a little confusing to me, but that's par for the course since it takes me a long time to figure out and understand computer programs

Now all I need is a web site to upload the real time data

Ron

[wuhu_software]

If you get Heavyweather running, and you have a broadband connection, you can upload your weather data to the Weather Underground and the Citizen Weather Observer Program. Your data can then be viewed remotely over the Internet.

Here is a link to addtional software you will need:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/wuhu_software_group/

This software will require that you are running version 2.0 beta (newer than the 2.1 version that ships on CD).