NZ Weather Forum

For future reference:

the boltek antenna is a tight neat fit inside a DWV 65mm PVC pipe

DWV = drainage and waste, light grey in colour

My setup I used approx:
150mm x 65mm DWV pipe,
1 x 65mm DWV socket,
1 x 65mm DWV lid,
1 x 65mm - 40mm DWV invert,
approx 2m x 40mm DWV pipe
approx 2m x 40mm preasure (white) water pipe

the 40mm preasure is a nice firm fit over top of the 40mm DWV adding strength and less tendancy to flex in the wind

my mast consists of approx 1500mm x 40mm galv pipe, knocked into the ground to act as a anchor for the mast, 6m length of 36mm galv water pipe which sits firmly inside the base and approx 5m of stainless thin walled 38mm pipe which slides over the 36mm galv pipe (salvaged out of a demolished milking shed) - the 40mm DWV is a nice tight fit over the stainless tube.

I have approx 1500mm verticle clearance between the top of the mast to the antenna with no metal apart from the cat5 cable

maybe there could be some CB's in a SE change on friday ,after the front and SW flows moves away on thursday...as the next big fat high moves in?

I have added the new station to the upper nth island correlation Stormvue http://www.portunus.net.nz/weather/Correlated.html
Be interesting to see how it goes if we ever get a storm...
It does rely on very good time sync of all the stations.. well much better than the standard windows once a week time update! So everyone make sure your time sync is working

ok - silly question - but what is the best way to set up the time sync for accuracy?

Good stuff. Ricky, is it possible you put your squelch down from 3?
I sit there looking at the wasp2 viewer.. but it doesn't pick up as much as it does on strikestar, or what I recieve.. even when I have the error tolerance maxed out at 100km?

Gary, this lil app works well and doesn't run down the memory at all..
http://ravib.com/timesync/

Thanks - all done and installed - now time synced I hope

I am picking up the odd strike down in Canterbury, but slightly west and north of the event....

I think I need some real fine tuning now....

Where do you get hold of the Wasp2 app Foggy? I thought that was only running for the larger networks!

turned the squelch down, but there was a reason for it.. Relko reckons that anything below 4 wont really affect anything closer than 1000 kms and I was trying to stop the really weak false strikes and noise from a close storm that pushes the trac ranging out...

No no, Relko released it to everyone on the Australian strikestar network.. hmm will forward the email to you

probably got caught in my spam filtering!

dang, look at those strikes now out to the NE of us!!!
hey, kaimai kid, you need to change the alighment a bit,..your strikes are showing up a bit too much around to the left compared to rickys or mine (have not checked foggys)


maybe the next front might fire up a bit more yet before it gets here...
some instability now showing up over the city area

done that - tilted it 14 deg to the east and played with the instant ranging - no worries - one day when there is a close storm to track, I'll spin me pole to suit...

i can see the CB lines way to the south of me now...
they look quite impressive....look like hailers
no lightning activity showing up at the moment...

dammmmmmmm

need to shift things yet again...

i see one strike i recorded south of me...
looks like possible hail shower in waiuku now..
NW of sydney, aus, has had a real beauty:
http://www.sphere.net.au/strikestarau/

Foggy, you are in line to get a good hail/thunderstorm next 30 minutes!

aucklanders, we might just a few flashes as it gets dark from the tail end charley of the next CB line?

Yes ,looks like the unstable air has arrived, thundery showers(weak) to our SW.

a shower of rain....and a temperature drop,..only 10oC here now...and summer is supposed to be just around the corner (well it will be with the warmer NW to spread onto NZ next couple of days)

Another question you guys.. any chance you could have this stormtracker accessible with a WAP browser? Could be mighty useful whilst chasing!

with the weather display software, there is a WAP graph of the lightning strike counts
and you can create your own customised WAP web page, and add in lightning counts, time of last count,
and i could easily add in abiltity to show the distance and bearing of the last strike
heck, even create a WAP compatible lightning strike plot map (I already have a lightning srtike plot map working in my client viewer version)

Ricky has lightning count total and strike count graph on his WAP page

just a quick piccy of whats what...

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boy you sure have been a busy boy!

man, couldn't get over the size of the davis, it makes the ws2300 look like a shrimp in comparison

lots of fun setting it up

Wouldn't lightning like to strike and break something like that sticking up above the roof?
Would be upsetting to have it broken, but then if it isn't high enough it doesn't work correctly.
Is it a case of if it gets struck it is rotten luck?

The bolt which strikes it is the only one you can be 100% sure you have tracked correctly!