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Yesterday UPS delivered a new Davis weather station to my humble abode.
At one time I had their Vantage Pro II model but lightning took care of that fine instrument which I soon replaced with a cheap Chinese model which was inaccurate and almost as poorly constructed as this rambling sentence.
You get what you pay for – lesson (re)learned.
I sent the Chinese model back for a refund and suppressed my interest in having a weather station.
Suppressed unsuccessfully, as it turns out…
The new model from Davis is their Vantage Vue– similar to the Pro II except that all the outdoor sensors are bundled together and communicate wirelessly with the indoor unit which will be attached to my computer and the internet. A solar panel powers the outdoor unit which will be mounted to my Hazer, allowing me to easily lower it from the top of the tower if/when necessary.
Reviews from hams on eHam indicate that it operates fine in the vicinity of RF with many of the reviewers mentioning that they too have the outdoor unit atop a tower next to their antennas.
A rational person might ask how the cost of one of these gadgets is justified given that weather data is freely available online and, I have to admit, that’s a good question.
What is it about the graphs and trends produced over time that appeals to me?
No idea, but I think it’s the same twist of nuerons that give me more satisfaction in working a distant station on shortwave as opposed to simply emailing the QTH.
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