Personal Weather Stations

I have noticed that a large number of regular contributors to the forum have, over a period of time, in some shape or form described their individual weather stations. Listing software and hardware, and any additional equipment.

I thought it would be a good idea if a sub section could be added to the Techie Forum where members would be able to describe their stations in full.

I shall kick off with the Gedney Hill weather centre. My station consists of the following:-

Hardware
Oregon Scientific WMR-200 wireless console.
O S WMR-100 wireless console.
Anemometer/Wind Sensor, 30 feet above ground.
PCR 800 Rain Gauge.
UNV 800 UV Sensor.
THGR 810 Remote Sensor, Temperature and Humidity, complete shade at all times, 3 feet above ground.
Otio Term Tech, Wired In and Out temperature sensor. The wire extending through my study window with a probe 4 inches above the ground, 50/50 sun and shade.
Stormguard/Barometer, made by Short and Mason 1930.

Software
Ambient Virtual Weather Station, Version 14.00 p33 internet edition. Enabling me to upload daily weather data to Weather Underground, Weather For You, Weather Exchange, and CWOP.

Due to problems I had with the WMR-100 communicating with my computer, I no longer use it for uploading to the internet, but only for displaying temperature and humidity from the remote sensor on channel 2.

Anyone wishing to add the specification of their stations, please feel free to do so.

Hardware

La Crosse WS2300, wired & using the cup type anemometer
1-Wire Solar Sensor
Boltek Stormtracker PCI
Logitech Pro5000 Webcam
Dedicated PC with UPS backup.

Software

Weather Display, including wxtide & WD Webcam Capture
Weather Display Live
Nexstorm
WXSim
WXSimate
WASP2

Data Uploaded To:

Hebrides-Weather.co.uk
Scottish Weather Network
UK Weather Network
CWOP
Wunderground
Netweather (Lightning data)
Strikestar EU
Blitzortung
AWEKAS

Update:

The station is now a Davis VP2 with Solar & UV sensors plus aspiration fan kit.

Hardware:
iROX HRG150 with rain gauge and 1 external temperature sensor

Software:
Nil
All data manually recorded in MS Excel

It's a start!

Watson W-8681. Excellent value for the money.

Running packaged Easyweather software. Again, good value for money if you can tolerate the blip on the rainfall recording.

Tried the 30 day trial for Weather Display. Too many bells and whistles for me.

Tried Cumulus. Excellent; unfortunately I don't run the lap top 24/7 so there would be large gaps in data.

Cumulus uses the logger now (from v1.8.0 onwards) so doesn't need to run 24/7

Steve

Wellington Weather UK. Current Conditions

Weather Station: Oregon WMR968 Weather Station bought off Ebay from Gernamy at nearly half the UK price! - only 2 minor problems: The AC power plug is continental (easily fixed with a cheap holiday adapter) and the time signal from Germany can't be read, so I have to manually set the clock. The wind sensor is on the chimney and as we are nearly on the top of a hill it should give faily accurate readings. The temperature sensor is housed in a home made stevensons screen (instructions kindly given on this forum :icon_smil)

Software: Ambient Virtual Weather Station internet edition v14 running 24/7 on a broken laptop (screens dead, but otherwise works fine) with vwsql dumping to a mysql database. Uploads to Wunderground and UKWN

Web Server: I host my own site using a Synology NAS server 107+. This is basically an external hard drive unit with built in Apache web server, php, mysql, blog and photo gallery functions. Excellent bit of kit!

Web site: Created by myself, with the help of many forums such as this, using Adobe Dreamweaver, Flash and Photoshop with a smattering of AJAX and other code gleaned from others more adept in the art of php programming.

1-wire system

AAG anemometer
HB Temp/Humidity sensor
HB Barometer
HB Rain Gauge
HB Power Injector

Software

Ubuntu "Hardy" OS (Linux)
One Wire Weather
Weather Display
Apache Server

My weather data is collected 24/7 on my weather station server located at my house. Weather Site and data all hosted at home and data sent to UKWN, CWOP and Weatherunderground.

Web Server is just an old pc I rescued from the skip at work cleaned out, removed any superflous hardware, video boards etc and software, "windows XP", and then put in a new power supply (spare one). Added Ubuntu Server software plus all the other stuff such as php,Apache and it has been up and running for over two years....total investment £0 ..payback all smiles.

Hardware:

Oregon Scientific WMR 200, bought from an eBay seller located in Germany, who does it for little more than half UK price. Only very minor drawback is continental plug - easily got around! The atomic clock signal is switchable between UK and Frankfurt, so no issues there. The WMR 200 includes:

Wind speed and direction
Outdoor temperature and humidity
Indoor temperature and humidity
Barometric pressure
Rainfall

Software:

Weather display (full version) running on an old laptop (low power consumption and adequate to the job)

Web server:

I have a Supermicro server, inevitably from eBay, running a Linux server suite (Clark Connect community edition - free!). This includes an Apache web server which is working on a domestic broadband link.

I am very new to this weather station malarky, so it's early days yet!

Woughton Park Weather

Hardware:

Nexus from TFA

Wind speed and direction
Hygrometer/thermometer
Barometric pressure
Rain gauge

Software:

Weather display running on a laptop updating web site every 5 mins.

The Anemometer needs to be raised about another 5 meters,the rain guage is in the open at 3 feet height and the hygrometer is shaded from extremes at about 4 feet.

I am using a Nexus TFA.

Temperatures excellent, Pressures and time ditto. The Rain Unit needs a bit of a downpour to actuate the odd drizzle is ignored.There have been very few drop outs but my set up is not very wide ranging.

Wind speed under-reads and the wind direction appears to be 90 degrees out of kilter.
I have set it up two or three times as per the book and, as I was a Navigator for 40 years, I have a good idea where North is.
The wind direction is never going to be very steady because the vane is too small and flimsy.

The software is reasonable for my purposes.
Would I buy it again ? If I had found this Forum prior to purchase maybe, but then, maybe not ! There is nothing like listening to the voice of experience and there seems to be some excellent kits out there.

Hello - new to the forum so thought would introduce myself via listing what I have:

Location: Hanley, Stoke on Trent. Staffs.

Hardware: Fine Offset WH1080 with all sensor hardware at chimney height.

Software: Cumulus Weather software.

Server: Downstairs ftp and web server (downstairs.dnsalias.net/) hanging off my ADSL and working very well.

System is happily serving the web The Six Towns weather plus updating PWS, WU, CWOP (as M5GWH my amateur radio callsign) and tweeting as SixTownsWeather with hourly updates.

Thanks for a good forum!

Leigh.....

Hardware
Fine Offset WH1080 (bought from Maplin as their N96FY, same as Watson W8681 and other differently branded stations).

Anemometer and wind sensor approx 30 ft above ground.
Hygrometer/thermometer and radio transmitter approx. 15 ft above ground.
Rain sensor approx 10 ft above ground (will be lowered when the weather gets warmer)

Software
Standard Easyweather software
Data collected regularly onto a laptop to create a consolidated history file which is split monthly to an Excel spreadsheet.

So far, I have found the equipment works well, and the radio transmitting range is very good, My only criticism is not being able to adjust the absolute pressure (see my separate post).