LOL, well I thought I would post to this thread this year (2009) as it was the one that I learned the most from regarding the wmr968 freezing rain issue. I followed the "Super Soaker" idea last winter with absolutely excellent results. We had about 14 or 15 heavy rain or snow combined with freezing rain events last season, and usually in the morning I would go over and spray the unit with hot water and our trusty SS (we got 2 of them so my son had a lot of fun too) However I found I was over there every couple days thawing the unit this way, and sometimes I made a number of tripss in the snow with a hot water filled SS, because the cold air cooled the water to the point it had minimal effect once it got up to the level of the unit in the cold winter air, so I really had to coat it sometimes... lol I think sometimes it was the force of the water that unstuck it and not the temperature.
Then I figured what the heck, I would use an SS filled with windshield antifreeze, and man did it work well (one of the properties of this stuff is that it will clear the windshield almost instantly in heavy icing conditions, great for long drives in freezing rain) ... it melted the ice off the unit after only 1 or 2 squirts and there was heavy ice there at times.. Also , as I read in posts on another forum, there seemed to be a residual effect, in that once I used the antifreeze, it seemed like I didn't have to return for 2 or 3 weeks at times, even though there were a number of freezing rain events in between. I was a happy camper.
Alas, s on a warm summer day in july after a light rain, the whole anemometer just up and died on me, this from a year old (just out of warranty) unit!. After all the testing on the ground and with the solar sensor I could think of, I took the unit down to find that I had completely corroded the spindle (or electronics) inside the unit, to the point where it had dripped tiny amounts of rust out the bottom drain holes, and that's why the Direction sensor was stuck on north... it was actually stuck there and rinsing and cleaning had no effect, probably due to all the particulate rust in the unit. lol, it actually squeaked as I forced it to turn!
So this year, I decided to try out the idea of the various shields being placed on the unit like in kv-swe's post above, and finally found a funnel I could cut and fit to the unit. I couldn't find any of the gatorade type soft plastic bottles here that fit (blame it on size marketing
) so a small white funnel did the trick. We had a freezing rain event last week and the unprotected unit froze until the sun thawed it 6 hours later in the morning (no direction or speed) so was too late for that last week, but now that the new unit is fitted, I will monitor this and let you know if my results are as good as last year's, but hopefully with better long term results now that I'm not spraying caustic chemicals at the unit from below. (I think that's where the problem arose where had I sprayed from above I might not have got the antifreeze into the unit? speculating (actually crying in my beer lol)
I took a pic of the new shield.. it's slightly larger than the one above, but hopefully it should work well. I was concerned that the slope of the one above might not be enough to prevent the buildup of ice when we have a lot so the funnel has a slope of 60 or so degrees and the water should evacuate easier from it before freezing.
Will post a pic today or tomorrow of the finished ice shield. And many thanks for the ideas on this thread, I think I tried them all... except for the hot air or tubing ideas lol.. too far from the house for that to work
All the best
Jim
