Welcome to the Hobby, i would start saving now as its a expensive one :). I hope you have many years of enjoyment out of your station. right now to the setting up.
Wireless:
Only go wireless if you have too, if you are in distance to wire then wire. When you are wireless you are suscetable to interferance, station loosing reception etc. Also make sure your TX is in range of the console and not too far away as this will give you a dodgy signal. Mine is about 90ft away which is quite good and works pretty well. Many things can cause interferance so just be aware if you get an odd reading or loose signal.
Another bonus of being wired is that data interval is every 8secs instead of the over 1min with wireless.
Sensor Siting:
Search the forum for sensor siting and you will find many answers, but in short;
Anemometer:
You want you anemometer in the most open space many people opt for off the top of the house. You dont want your wind readings obstructed by trees, buildings or anything. But just do your best with what you have. I have mine mounted above a fence. We all cant have perfect met office set ups.
Rain Gauge:
Rain gauge should be sited off the ground to stop splash back adding to readings, it is also ideal to site it in the shadow of something, If it were to be in the open and it was windy then this could shake the bucket and cause a top or blow the rain sideways afffecting your readings.
Temp/Hum:
Your temperature and humidity sensor should be sited approx 1.5m above ground level over a grassy surface. Being near conrete/brick affects temp readings. Its also ideal to scrap the rain cover that comes with the station and get a radiation shield. Again search the forum for “fars” or “radiation shield” for more info on this. At the moment try not too site it in direct sunlight as you will just have stupidly high temps, when you have a radiation shield then you can be more free with it.
"I have set up the 3 sensors on a shelf, this is attached to a 6ft high fence. The 3 sensors are all side by side , equally spaced. Is this ok or do they need to be spread a distance from each other in order to get accurate readings?? This was done yesterday, I am yet to put the batteries in until I have loaded the software.........does this matter ?"
As for the above paragraph ignore being “equally spaced”, its where they are that matters that why the cables are 10m and you can have an extra 10m added. Doesnt matter if the batteries are in. You may as well turn it on and make sure everything is good, you can also erase any data collected when you load the software and start fresh.
Now for the Software installation
The driver disc for the USB adapter does that have to be installed first , before the WS software or doesn’t it matter?
Yes install the usb driver first or the pc wont know its there and the software wont be able to see it. With everything always install drivers first.
The USB adapter for the connection from the PC to the WS looks odd, is there a complete cable that can be used rather than the two that have been supplied??
The cable to connect from the console to the pc is a serial cable. One end has a rs232 connector on and the other an rj11?(or one of the phone connectors, cant remember). Then you have your SERIAL to USB converter which if you pc doesnt have a serial port allows you to plug your console into the usb. NOTE: If your pc does have SERIAL USE IT, you will be much better off using the original data connection.
Another note; you may have problems with the “cheap” adapter provided, it is worth paying a few
