I am considering picking up the La Crosse WS-2310 because that’s about all I can afford. All this stuff is new to me. I am going to be moving soon and will have a deck right outside my room. I was thinking of putting it on a tripod on the deck, I’d rather not mount anything if I don’t have to. I just wouldn’t know how I should go about doing that, what tripod I ought to use how high, etc. If anyone has a better suggestion about what equipment to get I’m happy to consider something else. I’m going to use a Pentium 4 1.2ghz to dedicate to it that right now is just sitting around not being used.
Wasn’t sure where to post this, sorry if I posted in the wrong place.
Welcome to this wonderful world. Started about six weeks ago jmyself and I’m addicted now (a warning, so you have time to choose another hobby ).
Having a seperate machine to run all weatherstuff is certainly a good idea. Especially if you let it running 24/7. Have you already made a software choice?
I am running a WS-2310 and for the money with some attention to placement it is a great station IMHO
Without knowing the deck setup and assuming it may be wood with railings I would think you could rather easily mount a 4 X 4 to the railing and then hang your rain gauge and thermo-hygro sensor from it and mount a radio-shack antenna mast to the side for your Anemometer.
You would want to get your wind sensor above the roof line and depending on which direction the deck faces how much you will need to do to protect the thermo-hygro sensor from direct sun influence. If the deck gets a large amount of sun you will want to search this forum for “stevenson screen” and look at options in building a protective enclosure. The La Crosse thermo-hygro sensor is extremely sensitive to direct sun. http://www.wxqa.com/shields.html
Good luck and welcome to this crazy world of Weather Watching
I am not using the WS-2310, but I have heard great things about it. If you would like to mount your weather station out on your deck, as you said, it sounds like a great idea for a few reasons. First off, you will have easy access to your weather station, in case there are any problems, or if you have to change the batteries. Also, you shouldn’t have too much of a problem mounting your weather station. Maybe you could take a few pictures of the area that you’re going to mount your weather station, so we all have a better idea of the environment. Also, it would help if you could tell us your location. Good luck, welcome, and don’t be shy about asking questions.
I’ll post pictures when I can. The house is still under construction, and really it’s my mom’s house, I am getting an apartment over the garage. I realized after mentioning the tripod it wouldn’t be a good idea anyway, I just didn’t want to leave too many holes in the deck railing. JaxWeather I had a feeling you would reply, you’re the one that sent me the link for the forum…I e-mailed you the other day off of your website. I’m out at Jax Beach myself, moving to the beach side of third street.
Me neither, what I did is temporarily setting up everything with tighrips and ducktape.
If you’re satisfied with the placing of all your sensors and cabling you can go for a more permanent solution (although tightrips and ducktape can make a permanent solution ;-))
Not 100% sure, but probably, don’t always have a lot of money to spend. Come to think of it, if the deck is going to be like the pictures I saw and the one on the main house, it might not be very easy to mount a 2x4 to it. It will have a lot of lattice work or whatever, instead of just straight polls in it, a lot of criss-cross stuff that I could break if I kicked it hard enough. Might have to rethink this one again. Need to figure out something that my landlord/mom/boss will agree with. I definitely have nixed the tripod idea, the only way that would work is if I had one mounted to the deck, but the deck is small it would take up way too much space, it’s barely enough room for two chairs on it. Though there’s another deck between the house and the apartment over the garage where the stairs will be. Wow, now I am thinking out loud.
That’s okay if you think a lot outloud…it just helps us understand your situation a bit more. Just keep thinking about all of your possibilities and choose the one that is best for you. Good luck.
How about if you mount your anemometer on a pole from somewhere like RadioShack (10 foot or 5 foot) onto your decking post or a solid area on your deck that can support 2 or 3 feet of a pole? Do you know what the difference in height will be from your deck to the roof of the house?
This isn’t the best picture, but I think you will get the idea. Maybe something like this would work for you. Might be easier than trying to mount on the deck. A simple tripod and guy wires. Just an idea for your project.
you could try some crazy think like I have on my site. on the bottom legs of the tripod, there are some flanges that normally would take a lag bolt and screw into the roof. I put 3 foot lenght threaded rod through those holes, secured a washer and nut to one top end and pounded that into the ground, I got the threaded rod at the hardware store, it is galvanated so rust will hopefully not be an immediate problem, then dropped the mast a bit so it touched the earth to take some stress off the tripod when the mast would be up to the height I wanted. Added some guy wires for wind sway (minimized it) and so far it is stable. But that might be more than you wanted to do right now. http://home.mchsi.com/~dsmweather/stationinfo.htm
One nice thing about this hobby, you can always re set up your sensors after you see how they perform .
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