While I was walking through my local mall, the Westfield in Chatswood, I came across an Australian Geographic store that had in its window display a Weather Station, this is precisely what I needed. So I went in to the store and tried to inform myself as much as I could. I have worked with datalogging equipment before, apart from my experience in the Chilean Navy as an Electronic Engineer so I was pretty confident that the challenge would not be too big. Aside from the electronics aspects of the weather station itself, concerning the weather aspect was also something not too daunting either having several quite a few years as Office of the Watch on the bridge as well as Navigation Officer, and even as a Patagonian Channel Pilot for visiting foreign warships, it was my duty to have a keen lookout for the weather as well as registering in the log book the meteorological conditions, aside from taking pertinent and necessary actions.
Well of the 4 available suitable models available in the store, which where suited because the had a USB connection available to be able to connect the weather station to a computer that would serve as a data logger, I chose the WMR88 by Oregon Scientific, which was the second most economical one, and cost me AUD 269.00.
Excitedly I got back expectant to unpack, install and test my latest aquisition.
To be honest I was not very impressed with this package, though it looked promising and pretty simple. The box contained pretty much everything that is required for the station including the batteries for the peripheral sensors and the USB cable to connect to the computer, as well as the software.
The instructions are not that bad, one could even say clear, but one feels a bit underwhelmed, expecting a bit more, though it is pretty much simple in terms of setup. I would have appreciated a bit more on how the actual system worked in terms of the electronic telecommunications, though it might not be relevant to most, for the problems I was about to suffer it might have been.
Well, after putting in the batteries in all the sensors, I put the batteries in the station display unit and then connected the AC power to it. I was quite happy to see that the inside temperature was working, that eventually the outside temperature sensor was also displaying on the unit. I also tried the anemometer rotating the wind vane and seeing that it reflected on the display and rotating the wind speedometer. I tipped the rain bucket and saw that it also was communicating to the display. So far so good.
I installed the software that came with the unit, which is the Base Version of Virtual Weather Station by Ambient Weather, which loaded okay. So far so good. Problems started about now. One of the things that I was most interested in was in the logging of the data, I soon found out that to have that feature and to be able to access it in a CSV for spreadsheet I would have to pay at least an additional USD 70 !!! Not very happy about that. The other thing that I started observing apart from the not very nice interface, was that that no information would be displayed till it had connected to all selected peripherals, this was starting to be a nuisance. At this stage I started to notice that some of the sensor now had an intermittent communication with the base station, and they where right next to it. What I eventually did was deselect the sensors that had problems and then got a display.
I decided to investigate what other software was available and found that one that seemed often recommended was Weather Station Data Logger, currently in version 4.2. I downloaded it here: http://sourceforge.net/projects/wmrx00/ and installed without a problem. It started displaying instantly without a problem. It also had data logging to CSV with out a problem either. All this without cost!!
Well, being semi satisfied with the sensors and their working with the base station I ventured to install the anemometer on my roof attached to the TV antenna. I double checked that it was sending information correctly. Well after installing the anemometer, the base station stopped receiving from it.
I put the rain bucket outside, it being an ideal day as it was raining, as well as being windy, this is data from a nearby station as testimony http://www.wunderground.com/weatherstation/WXDailyHistory.asp?ID=INSWCHAT1&day=2&year=2011&month=1&graphspan=day. Well the rain bucket didn't transmit any more either after an initial transmission.
From here I tried everything to try and get the sensors to talk to the base station, remove and insert batteries, press reset buttons, on the sensors and base station, press the search button on the base station, everything was futile. In the end after several hours I gave up and left the base station connected to the computer to see if anything happened overnight. Alas nothing ever did.
I also looked on the internet to find any information that might be of help. The closest I could find were quite mixed reviews on a related product the WMR100 on Amazon.com (http://www.amazon.com/Oregon-Scientific-WMR100-Professional-Wireless/product-reviews/B000F4S5V2/ref=sr_1_29_cm_cr_acr_txt?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=1), some post were sort of helpful, at least to discount that I had tried pretty much everything.
At least though I had the log of the inside temperature and humidity, this was not enough though and had made up my mind to change the unit the next day.
So much for my first Personal Weather Station, to conclude, not very good and I did return it the next day.
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