I've just joined and in the process of setting myself up a weather station.
I live in Chippenham in Wiltshire and I volunteer for a 4x4 charity under that banner of 4x4 response. Our aim is to help public services, blue light services, councils, other charities, to name but a few. Mainly our services come in when the weather is so bad as to render normal vehicles unreliable. Snow is our main focus but serious flooding is also reason for getting a call. We can also get called if "all hell breaks loose" and the front line services get overloaded. In some ways we are the "last responders". We are country wide and with membership into four figurers. The only thing we get for our efforts is a contribution to our fuel costs. Personally I see it as allowing the necessary but socially deemed evil beast to justify itself.
Weather is our main focus as I said and one thing that causes great frustration is when snow is forecast. We are getting 'heads up' alerts and preparing for action. Then, eventually a snowflake is reported by an unreliably witness. I have been watching the weather reports with interest over the last couple of years and would like to learn more. A weather station seemed a very interesting way to do this, plus I am going to relay the observations to my local team members as an alternative source of information.
As for the weather station itself, my research tells me that the Davis VP2 range is a good choice and while there are cheaper stations around they seemed to suffer from long term reliability issues. Then I had a major bonus, my employer had purchased a weather station for a project, which subsequently never happened. I enquired and the result was the station is a Davis VP2, its five years old, never out of the box AND they are happy to donate it to the charity. What a result!! Politics are playing a big role, as they do in most larger organisations but I think we will get there.
So far I have got hold of the base station, the data logger and the software so I have configured the base station and now have it talking to Cumulus. I am working on the website, but with a lack of sensors at the moment, that part is not automatically updating as yet. However, the internal temperature, humidity and barometric pressure readings are operating nicely. Its operating on batteries at the moment as the mains power supply appears to be American and is rated at 120 volts. I'm not plugging that in!!
I have made a decision. If, for some reason, the donation falls through and I lose this station then I'm going to buy a new VP2.
Anyway, I'm sure I'll have questions to raise so any assistance would be greatly appreciated.
Many thanks,
Dave
There is always someone here willing to give a hand.