Help... extreme Newbie..Just purchased Davis VP2 any suggestions?

Thanks to members who have answered my other cries for help on different threads,Im A complete novice when it comes to weather forcasting, monitoring etc… im still trying to learn all the terms of measurement and what they mean, Ive finally decided not to keep the two unopened stations I just received (davis weather wizard III & lacrosse ws-3610u touchscreen) . And instead purchased a Davis VP2 wireless which should arrive sometime this week. As I said before im green when it comes to meterology and am interested in learning since it seems like a great hobby, what else do I need to buy to make this station work once it arrives, not really looking for any additional sensors like soil or leaf sensors, just the basics for now will do until I learn more about what ive gotten myself into here :roll:

my wife and I own a condo so we cant put anything on the roof and since someone else cuts the lawn I cant put anything out in the common yard area like a pole with guidewires, the best I can do is mount to a wooden fence structure about 8 ft out from the rear of the house,( see pic) I will include a pic of the rear of our condo so you can make recommendations, im assuming that I should remove the temp sensor and place it somewhere other than directly on the pole or is the radiation shield adequate on the davis vp2? I would like to check data on my pc as well ive been hearing about WD im assuming its some monitoring software created by someone on this site, if
someone can recommend a good monitoring software that works well with this and tell me how much it costs and where I can get it I would really appreciate it, thanks and I anxiously await responses
thanks again p.s the davis is the wireless version not the cable version
Wayne


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I have a question for you.

Are you able to get on top of your roof ?

Believe me I wish I could get to the top of the roof… but even if I could the condominium association doesnt let anyone put anthing on the roof, I know that my results are not going to be as accurate because of this so im hoping that I can get decent results by mounting a pole next to the red fence in the picture, also do you know if the davis vp2 has an actual rain bucket or does it count drops, what is a data logger? is this software that what I need to connect the console to my pc so I can see the information on my computer?thanks for taking the time to reply, its really appreciated

Wayne

Welcome to our forum. You’ve made an excellent choice with the VP2.
The radiation shield on the ISS is very good - you can put it in the direct sun. Also, you need to have it in the sun with the solar collector facing south in as much sun as possible.
I’ve attached a photo of my setup - you can do the same on your fence post very easily. I bought 10’ of antenna mast from radio shack, and attached it to the post as you can see. The only problem you will have is that you house will block the wind to the anemometer. The anemometer comes with 40’ of cable, so you’ll have to experiment with the location of it to get your best results.
As far as software, Weather Display is the best of course. Brian Hamilton is the author, who in my opinion give the best support I’ve seen for a software application. He is here at this forum many times a day helping out and writing no features into the program on a daily basis.
You can get a 30 day trial here:
http://www.weather-display.com/
Weather Display has so many features, you might be overwhelmed at first. Just take it a step at a time, and come back here to ask any questions. This is a group of folks who like to help and are very adverse in the application and computers.

Oh, and by the way - when you order your VP2, don’t forget to add the data logger. You will need it to interface with your computer and any weather software. I chose the USB version, but a serial version is also available.

Good luck, and don’t be afraid to come here to ask questions - we are here to help!


Snowman thanks for your reply, very slowly things are starting to make sense and thanks for everyone who is helping, I bought the vp2 from a davis authorized reseller from Ebay so where can I buy the data logger and is it a piece of hardware or software and once I get the data logger then I would need to purchase WD? which im assuming is a software package. Wont really be able to do much about mounting of the wind sensor since I cant get up on the roof or use the middle of the common yard ( drawback to condo, only own whats inside the house) so im assuming the readings I will get will be wind gusts and not accurate windchills or wind directions, thanks very much, any other suggestions pleeezzzz feel free to bark them at me, this is pretty overwhelming and hope I havent gotten in over my head here, which is the same thing I wondered when I was a marine :).

That mounting setup that snowman did was what I wanted to go with…but I’d have to anchor the 4x4 post in the ground with 200lbs of cement to keep someone from stealing the whole thing.

Instead I mounted mine on the roof. You can use snowman’s approach to mounting yours.

Get you a piece of pipe from Radio Shack or wherever and attach that to your Fence.

I’d do that by getting the pipe… a 1 foot piece of 2x4 wood stud … and two sets of U-Bolts

Mount the pipe to the the the upper half of the 2x4 with the U-Bolts and then attached the
the lower half of the 2x4 to the fence’s supporting 4x4 …near the top of it.

Or you can do the setup like SnowMan did.

In the meantime…you can dowload the trial version here of Weather Display and run it in Stationless Mode until your new station arrives… That way you get a a feel of how the software works.

Basically the taller up a post you can put the anemometer the better your readings will be - if you cannot put anything on the roof then could you perhaps find a sturdy but tall post that would let you get your anemometer up at roof level - would you be able to use guy ropes/wires etc to keep the post steady in stroing winds??

Ed I wish I could use the same location that snowman is using which seems to be out more in the open, that would be in our common yard space that everyone shares and since im sure the somehow the maintenance crew would find a way to damage the post or the sensor while doing yard maintenance that option is out, im hoping I can get satisfactory results attaching it to our fenc post, I will try to take a look at that software sometime today if I need help or have questions I hope

bristolwx I believe at this point that the only place that I will be able to mount this without offending anyone is on my fence and at a height that wont call for a any guide wires so im sure it wont be very tall certainly not to roof level we have a 2 floor condo, I guess I can still have fun with the limited usage of the davis till more favorable mounting solutions present themselves, I know I asked this before but does anyone know if the the rainsensor counts raindrops on the davis vp2? also what do i need to do to try out WD using it in stationless mode?

Hi

See if that person you bought the weather station on eBay from can get you the Davis Data logger
at a better price than getting it from Davis Company The rain sensor collects rain…there’s a tipping mechanism inside of it that measures the amount of rain collected and displays it on the computer screen.

What part of the county to you live in ?

Ed I purchsed it from provantagecorp, a davis reseller and thats a great idea, ill check with them and see if they have the datalogger for sale, I live in madison wisconsin

Hello

If you download the trial version of Weather Display at this link
http://www.weather-display.com/files.php

The top file in the list Weather Display v10.23c 6.68 MB

You can run it in stationless mode and it will work by getting the Metar info from an airport
in your area … You’ll get all the weather display readings from your airport …kinda neat for people that don’t have a weather station.

You’ll get readings like these
http://www8.landings.com/cgi-bin/parse_wthr_script.pl?pass=12345&apt_id=KMSN&type=METAR

Wind: From 220

Great thanks Ed, at least I can get familiar with the interface of WD… is there a book I can get like" meteorolgy for dummies" #-o , I really feel I need to learn about some of the readings might mean and how they can impact the weather, what good is a ferrari if you have no license.

In the Trial Version of Weather Display …Weather Display itself will Download the Metar info of your Airport from Noaa weather service and display the decoded Metar in Weather Display …

Running WD in stationless mode …you’ll still get the graphics like the picture above.

that interface looks great now if I could only figure out what it all means, I guess like anything else, I will learn in time

Here is a link to Weather Basics

http://www.usatoday.com/weather/resources/basics/wworks0.htm

and a great online Understanding Weather is at the below link

http://ww2010.atmos.uiuc.edu/(Gh)/guides/mtr/cld/dvlp/org.rxml

there are also weather forums for weather enthusiasts and “newbies” to discuss weather conditions, and what it all means etc etc etc

one example is http://www.ukweatherworld.co.uk

You can learn all about Weather at the below link

http://ww2010.atmos.uiuc.edu/(Gh)/indexlist.rxml

All the help is much appreciated, hopefully with some reading will come more understanding, I really would like to understand more about my surrounding weather conditions, I hope I have the head for it #-o