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Help with choosing a weather station please

Talk about anything that doesn't fit elsewhere - PLEASE don't put Cumulus queries in here!
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kGarden
Posts: 1
Joined: Sat 19 Feb 2022 9:46 am
Weather Station: Not known yet
Operating System: Windows 10

Help with choosing a weather station please

Post by kGarden »

I've spent a considerable amount of time trying to decide which brand / model would suit me ... but I can't seem to get confidence that I have got the right answers, I'd appreciate help from people familiar with the models.

A decade ago I had a Fine Offset and Cumulus, connected to Wunderground. That worked fine for my needs but it was mounted on a pergola, which rotted, and I've never got around to getting a more modern replacement. I'm now fortunate to be able to afford a bigger budget.

Here's my wishlist:

I don't need a console

I want to log to a local computer (and also to upload to Wunderground, but that is secondary)

I want to store data in event of power cut or computer failure. The PC is on UPS so that should be fine, but if Station (or a box-in-the-middle) can buffer the data that would add redundancy.

I don't want to pay a recurring subscription to have my data logged e.g. in the Cloud

I would like to record external temperature and also temperature in my greenhouse. I have no interest in the temperature inside my house, so perhaps I can use the "Indoors" sensor for the greenhouse temperature?

(Ability to trigger an alarm when greenhouse temperature exceeds threshold would be useful, but I could handle that from PC / logged data which would give me more control - e.g. to differentiate between fast rising morning temperature (forgot to open the vents ... or not enough ...) and mid-day in a Summer heatwave)

The greenhouse is 50 yards from the house, and there is a thick evergreen conifer hedge 15' tall in between. I could mount the station/transmitter on a tall pole on/near the greenhouse, and put a receiver on the roof of the house, but that will increase the installation complexity. Running a cable would involve a lot of work, so wireless connection would be ideal.

If batteries need changing having the station up a tall pole would increase inconvenience a bit.

The greenhouse is in a relatively sheltered area of the garden. Trees on two sides, and the tall hedge on the third, and a large tree on the forth side. Not sure how good a site that is for wind measurement? Could put the anemometer on the chimney of the house roof, or somewhere else, if that would be more accurate and if such remote mounting / communication is not too difficult to achieve. Although, not sure how interested I am in the wind speed, nor what impact a sheltered site would have. Maybe the data will be "good enough" for my purposes - e.g. relative measurements between a still day and a windy day?

I'm not overly interested in solar radiation / intensity, but sunshine-hours might be of interest (from a gardening perspective - "This Spring much worse light than normal" - that type of thing)

Soil temperature might also be of interest, but currently I have a soil thermometer. Temperature changes slowly so I have been assuming that my once-a-week manual readings are good enough, If soil temperatures are worthwhile then one inside the greenhouse bed and one in the ground outside would be useful

Some of the (higher end) models I have looked at seem to only be able to log direct to Cloud ... or I have misread their blurb. I'm put off by that - basically I just want to log the data locally.

I'm a database programmer, so dealing with the data shouldn't be a problem. Interfacing various (e.g. disparate) bits should be within my ability too

Thanks for your help.
User avatar
HansR
Posts: 5870
Joined: Sat 20 Oct 2012 6:53 am
Weather Station: GW1100 (WS80/WH40)
Operating System: Raspberry OS/Bullseye
Location: Wagenborgen (NL)
Contact:

Re: Help with choosing a weather station please

Post by HansR »

From what I read you might be interested in the Gateway Ecowitt GW1000, Froggit DP1500, Protech WSMG1000 (with a must read on WXForum.net).
Personally I use an Ecowitt ecology after using a Davis VP system. It has the advantage of being more modular and flexible and much cheaper.
Hans

https://meteo-wagenborgen.nl
CMX build 4017+ ● RPi 3B+ ● Raspbian Linux 6.1.21-v7+ armv7l ● dotnet 8.0.3
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