Sandaysoft

I'm sure this has been asked before but a forum search didn't turn anything up.

If money was no object (well, within say £500), what would be the best weather station hardware that integrates well with Cumulus?

Now that I've had my WH1080 for a couple of days and got it all setup with Cumulus and updating my site and a couple of other public places I'd definitley be thinking about better hardware for accuracy and robustness.

I'm delighted with what I have but I see it as a starting point now that I've discovered Cumulus and this forum, more achieved in a couple of days than I thought possible when on a whim I wandered into Maplin

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http://www.monaghan.tv

A Davis, without any doubt. Ideally, a Vantage Pro 2, but that would cost rather more than £500. A compromise would be a Vantage Vue, for under £400 with the data logger. Bear in mind when looking at Davis prices that the stations do not come with the 'Weatherlink' data logger/PC interface as standard.

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Steve
Sanday Weather
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Looks good. I see quite a variation in pricing but within the budget taking into consideration the Weatherlink addition, perhaps a Christmas present to myself

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http://www.monaghan.tv

Off topic ....

A few days, 6 posts, modified templates, php banner ....

I look forward to your future posts

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......................Imagine, what you will KNOW tomorrow !

Tony (I presume), as suggested by Steve, I highly recommend that you save a little more € (maybe for/until your next year birthday) and buy the fully reliable (well build and very accurate) Davis Instruments wireless Vantage Pro2 Plus (with 24-hour fan aspirated radiation shield) weather station with either the USB or the serial port WeatherLink adaptor (data logger).

I bought my station more than five years ago and I have not regretted once my purchase - I feel now (as I felt then) it was a good long-time investment.

The only problem I have encountered with the station, if I can call it/this a problem, is that the rain collector (cone) gets clogged with too many pine needles at this time of the year... ...I guess I must live with that problem/situation ... or I cut all the coniferous trees around my property (weather station), which would be way too drastic for me...

Would you believe that I have not yet replaced the battery in the solar powered ISS (the integrated sensor suite, which combines the rain collector, the temperature and the humidity sensors enclosed in the solar-powered, 24-hour fan-aspirated radiation shield, the anemometer [with 12 meters/40 feet of tether cable], the solar radiation sensor and the UV sensor), the battery I installed 5 years ago...

Just in case you might be wondering about the Davis claims that the wireless range (of the ISS) is be up to 300 meters (1000 feet) outdoors, line of sight... They are true... I was able to receive data up to about 375 meters (~1230 feet)... If I was in need of more wireless range, I could easily increase that range with the purchase of up-to eight solar powered wireless repeaters...

Talk/write about convenience and flexibility ... and all those additional sensors one can add to a Vantage weather station...

Another 'plus' for the Davis Instruments weather stations, at least for us living in North America, is that the company's technical support department can be contacted voice during the 'normal' business hours (from 07:00 to 17:30 Pacific time).

I guess I have said/written enough ... and I am not even compensated/paid for this advertising...

I earn my living as a UNIX / Linux sysadmin with some DBA and site design / coding thrown in, over thirty years in the IT biz.

Ok, I've done the easy stuff getting it all functional now comes the really fun stuff customising and adding third party contributions where appropriate and maybe creating something useful of my own.

I seriously thought that having a personal weather station and associated live data was expensive and a bit of a black art, how surprised I am right now and having a great time messing around with all of this.

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http://www.monaghan.tv

Ray, thanks for your input very much appreciated.

I'll most likely go for the Vantage Pro2 Plus and datalogger at some point in the near future. I'll continue to play around with the El Cheapo device I have now mainly to try out software and experiment with customisation.

I participate in few forums but this is one great place to meet fellow enthusiasts I rarely meet in real life, can't help hanging around here. Oh, and Steve's done a superb job with the Cumulus software

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http://www.monaghan.tv

Have a look at http://ambientweather.wikispaces.com/Weather+Station+Comparison+Guide It's not comprehensive but it may give you some ideas - and of course not all of them are compatable with Cumulus.

Ian

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on the Indian Ocean coast of Western Australia (down the bottom left-hand corner of Oz)