Steel Roof

to make it shorter than normal… we had a steel roof added to the house about the time the VP2 came into my life. Before the signal was not good, but the steel roof had no effect that I can see on the vp2. I am geting 97-100% reception with the vp2 and the soil moisture station. In fact I had to move both a bit further from the house and no problems from the steel roof. I am betting that the frequency range and the increase in mWatts helped a lot.

I had thought of getting a boltek and running the transmitter to our ceiling but with the roof probably would have some problems. Maybe next year… I can send the wife off on a trip, cut a channel across the yard, mount the antenna on the anememoter mast and hopefully she won’t be the wiser…
heh heh heh :lol:

But that sounds like another back breaking digging exercise!!! :x

and I will be a year older… however… just in the thinking stage…

Start now. Tell her it’s a drainage channel because the long range forecast is for very heavy rain and you wouldn’t want the house to flood.

that makes a difference in … lets see the THSW is 110 right now, heat stroke or flood. dang it is a hard question.

I still have to convince myself that this is something I need…

The neighbors are out there in the trees cutting one down. Unfortuntely they are taking out their Oak tree which is to the NW of the ISS. If they got rid of the maple, then I get better solar readings and less garden shade. Of course you don’t want to mess with the ladies… one lifts weights, rides a Harley, (I don’t think she rolls her own), her partner is a research chemist for a local flavorings company… Both are real nice, but if one cuts down trees ( gee sounds like a Monty Python moment… the lumber jack song… and it applies here), I am not messing with trees. A little sodium Pramitol and they croak in a hurry. I remember writing that in some sods lawn in college. not only kills the grass but keeps it from coming back… another story… as Pete about that.

Anyway, if I were to actually do that I would have to drill a hole through the floor down into the cellar and then drill another hole in the brick then run the wire out down and up. Oh to be 20 years younger and have the means for this hobby…

Don’t these projects just “grow” on you for this hobby! I’m sure you will be getting the usual list of “Do’s and Don’ts” just as the DW goes on her hioliday, - like -
“Don’t spend any more money on that silly weather station”;
“Don’t go digging up the yard like you do”
“Fix those squeaky doors”
“Water the garden”
"oh, and be nice to the neighbours… " :wink:
etc, etc

I have got a one-wire system in mind to add to the home station, but first now the weather is better - its stopped raining - I can tidy up the current installation and fix part of the house before photos for CWOP details.

it sure does grow…
I did redo my weather station page on my web site… and considering the re-cabling of the wires under the desk,the ability to hide a few more wouldn’t go noticed. http://home.mchsi.com/~dsmweather/stationinfo.htm

Right now the only two sensor stations I have are the ISS of course, and the soil moisture/temperature/leaf wetness station. Not really hard to set up once it has been done and one can brag about doing it. However my level of profanity has gone down somewhat with the exception of stepping on the times of the garden rake.

Neighbors did cut down their tree and of course it won’t affect my solar readings, but might open up some wind increases from the NW this fall… which is a whole different story.

Aard, it’s really surprising the metal roof didn’t affect your VP2 reception.

it had me worried a bit . however, watching them put it on kind of figured it out. Essentially they take off the shingles if needed then they put a water proof plastic layer wrap, then the traditional felt paper , but it is thicker and waterproof. then the shingle goes on . it is thinner than one would think, takes them about a week or so to do it as they fit it on . a bundle of their stuff weights about 20 pounds and shingle 75 pounds so the mass layer is different. Walking on the roof isn’t recommended, not because it damages the shingle, but there isn’t that slight give asphalt shingles has and one could slide off the roof in a hurry.

The company that did our roof… Bakeris Roofing , did an excellent job, plus inspected it twice before asking for the payment … They use metroshingle.
Now the business side of the shingle is a uv resistent polymer that the rock is fused to and that to the steel so it has the same outside materials. I would guess that if I had the ISS on the roof and aimed the antenna toward the roof, then with the different layers we might have signal reflection.

I do have the low -E double pane windows on the house and that does block signals to a point, but right now the signal strength is just fine.

The only thing that has me bugged a bit is that the utility company for the gas and electric is starting to install a transmitter to send to their towers meter readings. I wrote their company and inquired and found that they use 58 channels between 902 - 928 MHz.

Electric Meters - Every 30 seconds one set of transmissions is sent consisting of a standard consumption message 5.86 ms long followed in 250 ms by an interval data message message of 44.92 ms length.
Gas meter - Every 15 seconds an SCM message that is 5.86 ms long is sent. The VP2 transmits very 2.5 seconds. Taking that into account might be some conlict as the ranges overlap each other. The water meter is down in the 400 mhz range and I haven’t noticed anything . That thing is they drive through an area and wake up the transmitter with a signal and send it. It seems Midamerican energy wants the signal at anytime of the day, Some folks also have an interruptable power supply that the power companies can shut off power devices such as air conditioners when they think the power is peaking.

We don’t have the install yet,but I am betting within a year we will. I have noticed that we have had some power dips and blackouts with the heat rise and the UPS has helped out a lot.

My metal roof never bothered my old VP or the VP2. The Boltek is on top of the roof on the same pole as the animmenen… er windy thing. :wink: Just be careful on that metal roof. The can be SLICK! (I always tie in before going up, but then part of mine is about an 11 pitch.)

I appreciate the information. Next month I move into the 60s and right now all the old sports injuries ( both knees and right elbow ) are reminding me how fun it was to have them. I am not going up on the roof in this life because I am not ready for the next … :wink:

Hmmm, somehow “aardvark on a hot tin roof” doesn’t roll off the tongue like the original :lol:

lol

ha, ha, ha… eat your heart out… :o