Ive been doing a lot of searching and need to find a suitable pole to mount my anemometer, I like the idea of a fiberglass telescoping pole but does anyonethink I should go with an aluminum one instead because of less sway? please take a look at this site, they claim to have the strongest telecoping poles the site is http://www.wonderpole.com/, the pole im looking at is the superpro, starts out at 59" and goes up to 21’ your help is appreciated as always
We don’t have enough info to help you.
Do you get a lot of lightning where you are?
What winds do you expect?
Nudge: Please add your location to your profile so we can better help you.
Well… To a guy that has to justify every dime to “The Boss” that seems a bit overkill to me…
Mine is right about 20’ tall. 12’ 2 X 4 footed into the dirt tied to the eve of the roof and then a 12’ fence top rail mounted to the top of the 2 X 4 with three clamps. So far has wisthstood up to 30 mph winds without so much as a sway so i fully expect it will be good to double that, if a hurricane hits all bets are off no matter what you have IMHO 
Total cost about 20 bucks including hardware. Now I do have to get on a ladder to get to the clamps to loosen them to either slide pole down or to lift up and out… But that ladder is on ground and I don’t have to get on the roof itself.
-Bob
nikoshepherd, first of all Im not originally from Wisconsin, my wife is and we moved here about 11 months ago, what I did observe when I got here last spring in the area we were living at the time (waukesha) was that it rained for about two weeks on and off in the month of April and it was pretty windy and this is also a tornado watch state, I would love to give you an educated answer as to how much wind to expect here in Masdison but I would rather quote from a reliable source but im not sure where I would actually find those answers, im not kidding when I say im a weather idiot, this is all new for me and im creeping along here but if I had to say I would say moderately high winds can be expected from what ive observed here, wind chills dip down pretty low. Sorry I cant provide you with much more than that
Well you could get a 10 ft length of 2" Sch. 80 PVC pipe …then get a 2" x 1 3/4" reducer and slip that in the end. Then stick a 6 ft piece of 1 3/4" sch. 80 pvc pipe onto that… that’ll give you 16 ft of pole. If you can find the parts in your neighborhood…you can order them from the link below.
Sch 80 is the thicker of the PVC pipe
http://www.usplastic.com/catalog/category.asp?catalog_name=USPlastic&Category_Name=113&Page=1
That’s probably the route I’d try if I had to go with something that’s none metalic.
They have clamps or brackets to attach the pipe to your fence and you can spray paint the pipe to match the color of your house.
They should have a Home Depot…Lowes or some kind of supply store in your area also where you can go down and check out the different kinds of pipes. I’m sure they’ll cut the pipe to your desired length you want.
I wouldn’t order some kind of Wonder Pipe thing that’s going to cost $200
I spoke with the company and I think im going to go with two 5ft sections which can be adjusted to any height up to a height of 10ft and strap that to my fence post, the retractability as well as the non conductivity is pretty important, I dont think it pays for me to go any higher than that since this is in an unideal location anyway, the back of our condo, hopefully whatever reading I get I can compare with a more accurate reading then do an offset, hey im new to this ill just be happy if I can set this thing up right and get a reading
Oh dont worry guys, from reading the downloaded portions of the setup for the vantage pro 2 I’ll have plenty to keep you guys busy, again heres a view of the fence where I plan to mount the pole, thanks to all for your continued iput, the pole should be around $75.00 its within the budget so its ok
If you aren’t going higher than the roofline then the non-conductive thing isn’t going to make much difference. You can get a 10 foot length of lightweight galvanized tube (used for fencing top rail) from Home Depot for a few bucks that will do the job very nicely.
The top rail stuff is some nice material.
Also check how the Anemometer mounts, For a Lacrosse 2310 there is a Max and Min diameter
for a pole to use. For it they suggest .63" to 1.3" diameter pole. It mounts with two U-Bolts.
I don’t know the mounting for a Vantage Pro station.
I can confirm that the “Fence top rail” sections work great as that is what is extended up from the 12’ 2X4 attached to my house.
They even can be nested so you could sink the base of one into the ground a couple of feet and then place the other section directly onto the lower and clamp the joint and tie it to the top portion of your fence…
The La Crosse Anemometer fits it perfectly, We have had gusts to 25 mph today and it doesn’t even sway in my setup…
-Bob
ED1 the mounting minimum mounting diameter is 1 1/4" and max is 1 3/4" for mounting the anemometer for the davis vantage pro 2 at least thats what they said when I called them,
Mine’s very similar, base a couple of feet in the ground, total of about 16 feet above ground, the join is below the anchor point to the top rail of an old gate frame. I’ve seen > 40 mph without problems.
that looks pretty cool I wish I could have mine out in the open like that but we are restricted to much more modern placement as you can see
For my mast I went to Radio Shack and bought 2 - 5’ sections of antenna mast. They simple push togther and make a very solid mount.
Very sturdy.
Thanks for the response snowman, your setup is simple but effective, what I was looking for was a way to mount the pole to the 4x4 post on my fence using two 5’ sections and if I needed to do any work to the anemomemter all I would need to do would be to twist the collar on the pole and retract down the upper half of the pole, the most I figured I would need do is use my small ladder to make any changes to the mast once its fully recessed from 10’ to 5’ so im seriously looking at this " wonderpole" which is fiberglass which does exactly that, I consider your setup to be a good standard for me since im looking to do the same thing just with a retractable pole.
and of course my 2 cents": http://home.mchsi.com/~dsmweather/stationinfo.htm
you can read what and how I set my vp1 up. relatively cheap and it has held well.
If it absolutely has to be retractable then for a cheaper solution check out telescoping aluminum poles for window cleaning, ettore brand is pretty common and well made.
exactly. Things can go wrong with the unit and you have to be able to get it down easily and not take out the window, neighbor, yourself etc…