best weather station?

[daj]

I've been using my weather station for just over a year but still consider myself a total novice at the weather side of it. Lurking around here I read a variety of comments on the different weather stations.

I use the EasyWeather type, which if I am correct, is at the cheaper end of the scale but gave me a good start in life and has not let me down other than one spurious rain reading recently. Others seem less lucky with theirs.

The Davis one seems to be further up the scale in terms of laying out of cash.

Curious what everyone else thinks. What would you recommend for a novice?

[steve]

Ignoring the cost, I would have to say the Davis Vantage Pro2. Good quality, good accuracy, good instructions, good support from Davis (but can be patchy), good support from a very knowledgeable dealer if you buy from John Dann, reasonable software included, protocol and programming information freely available.

The Fine Offset stations are OK, and very cheap, but clearly built for price, and can be somewhat frustrating.

In the middle is Oregon Scientific, and I was quite happy with mine, but bits of it did start failing, and the stated accuracy of some of the sensors was not too good. But I'd recommend one if you wanted to spend more than the price of a Fine Offset, but couldn't stretch to a Davis.

[Repairman77]

An interesting discussion on the various systems and their accuracy and reliability.

I wonder what the actual differences in the cheaper and dearer systems are?
Have any got aspirated sensor units and are the various sensors temperature compensated, etc.?

I think with mods the cheaper ones can be improved and wonder if the extra cost (often many times the cost of the cheaper units) can actually produce significant improvements?

Mike.

[steve]

I wonder what the actual differences in the cheaper and dearer systems are?

It's difficult to compare the Fine Offset with the VP2, as FO don't publish any accuracy data. The VP2 spec is here:

http://www.davisnet.com/product_documen ... Spec_C.pdf

I did start to do some side-by-side comparisons, but didn't get far (hard to find the time, and there's my 'interference' problem).

Have any got aspirated sensor units and are the various sensors temperature compensated, etc.?

The VP2 has a FARS as standard in the higher end models (yes, you can pay even more!) and as an option in the base model. I believe that the VP2 barometer is temperature- and humidity-compensated.

One other advantage of the VP2 that occurs to me, is that you can keep adding extra sensors to measure all kinds of additional things - if you have the money!

[Repairman77]

Thanks for the VPS info Steve; very interesting.

I note that with a lot of the sensors they still only achieve +/- 3 to 4% once the temperature varies from the nominal 20 degrees C.

However I'm sure with a few small formulae you could better these to perhaps 1% before displaying the values.
You would need to collect enough data from Temp, Humidity and Pressure sensors and work out how much to add or subtract from each of the sensor values before displaying. I'm an accuracy freak LOL, but I guess most users would not be that worried.

Don't look at me, I'm not that clever with formulae, but I may try and get some error correction data in the future.

Mike.

[gemini06720]

David.

One weather station you might want to consider is the new Davis Vantage Vue:

http://www.vantagevue.com/

You might call that weather station the 'little brother or little sister' to the Davis Vantage Pro 2 Plus.

I have little experience with the Vantage Vue ISS (integrated sensor suite) but I have been testing and using the Vantage Vue console receiving weather data transmitted by my Vantage Pro 2 Plus weather station - indeed, the Vantage Vue console can receive (almost) all the weather data, including evapotranspiration (if the Vantage Pro2 or Vantage Pro2 Plus ISS weather station is equipped with a solar radiation sensor).

My only negative comments would be about the pressure sensitive buttons - not that they are difficult to deal with but do not offer the same easy access (for me) as the buttons on the Vantage Pro 2 console.

[gemini06720]

Mike, allow me to make some comments on things you have written...

I think with mods the cheaper ones can be improved and wonder if the extra cost (often many times the cost of the cheaper units) can actually produce significant improvements?

Mike you are probably one of the few weather station operator that has enough (electric/electronic) knowledge to even think about modifying the internals of a weather station...

Most operators want a weather station that is relatively simple to installed and setup (without the assistance of hundreds of engineers and technicians)...

And you keep writing about the precision of the readily available and at an affordable cost weather stations...

Well, when I purchased my Davis Vantage Pro 2 Plus (with the 24-hour fan-aspirated radiation shield) (and one on the higher priced of the readily available weather stations, at more than $1000CA), I was certainly not expecting my new weather station to offer me the same high level precision that Environment Canada (the branch of the government gathering and managing the weather information for Canada) was getting from its thousand of dollars weather stations.

Even now-a-day, Environment Canada seems to realize that super expensive weather stations are not that much better - for most new weather station installations and upgrades, EC has been using the Davis Vantage Pro 2 Plus weather stations.

[Repairman77]

Hi Ray,

Thanks for your comments.
I don't actually advise modifying the circuitry inside the transmitter or console units as this would certainly invalidate your warranty; although there are threads on this forums by those who have. Personally I think it's easier to manipulate the data once you have it on the computer, and you can alter the formulae at your leisure, like the Cumulus calibration allows.

I am a bit of a calibration/accuracy freak I suppose, as I am use to dealing with electronic equipment that measures to many decimal places. I'm new, as you can tell, to automatic digital WX stations (although I've been collecting analogue data for a decade or two with chart recorder equipment).

I was a little disappointed at first with the modern WX stations, but I'm getting to learn just how difficult it is to measure Humidity, Pressure and temperature accurately, although the temperature readings should be easy to get accurate with aspirated screens ( I used to repair electronic thermometers for a local food firm many years ago and they were quite accurate).

In the weather stations all the sensors seem to be affected by other parameters; Pressure one by temperature and so on, so nothing can be relied on to be much more than a few +/- % accurate.

As I've said before I guess I'm expecting a bit too much, but I'd be interested if some formulae for adjusting the errors could be written in the future.

I'm stuck with this unit, the WH1080 at the moment as being retired I have not the funds to purchase a better one, but I have made a 24/7 fan aspirated screen for the transmitter unit which appears to have made a good improvement.

Mike.

[daj]

Thanks for all the chat guys -- certainly there is not a clear cut answer. I was hoping there was an obvious next upgrade but perhaps not as they all have their pros and cons.

I enjoy what I have now, and although I am sure it is not extremely accurate it gives me a sense of what is going on. Not sure if I am ready to invest several hundred notes in something else just yet.