Replacing Tawa Weather

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Wildland
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Replacing Tawa Weather

Unread post by Wildland »

The WM918 weather station at Tawa has come to the end of its life – the anemometer failed a while back and now the temperature & humidity sensor has gone pear-shaped. Not bad performance for a $500 weather station that went online in April 2005!

I am considering a replacement and hope that integrating the historical data in Weather Display won’t prove too much of a challenge after I edit out the wild variations in temperature and humidity that have skewed the averages/extremes over recent months.

Has anyone done a comparative review of sub $1000 weather stations and their performance here in NZ? e.g. deterioration of plastic in our high UV, battery performance etc.

The Weather Watch forum has plenty of comment about reliability and service life of Oregon instruments, and the Davis units seem to be more reliable reflecting their higher price. But Davis doesn’t seem to have a particularly open mind about the software packages that they will support.

I think the way forward could be a modular approach – replace the basic WM918 functionality (wind, rain, temperature, humidity) with a unit that allows more features (solar) to be added over time. Wired vs wireless needs to be considered too. But wireless instruments would have to be pv-powered as I don’t fancy shinnying up the mast every 18 months or so.

The value of continuing with an amateur station also has to be weighed up. When Tawa Weather went on line in 2005, the density of stations was much lower, so the data was of more than just local interest. There are now far more weather stations on line, and regional councils have deployed their own networks as well.

Can a sub $1k station still make a contribution? If not, a basic hobby station might be the better approach.

Something for me to consider over the next week or two.
Manukau heads obs
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Re: Replacing Tawa Weather

Unread post by Manukau heads obs »

I use and recommend Davis
Which works perfectly fine with the weather display software :)
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Tornado Tim
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Re: Replacing Tawa Weather

Unread post by Tornado Tim »

Yup, go for Davis. Import it from the States, its cheaper and use Youshop for shipping.
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Wildland
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Re: Replacing Tawa Weather

Unread post by Wildland »

Thanks for the recommendations.
Research continues....
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