Davis Instruments Weather Club
November 1998
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Here's a quick preview of this month's contents:
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Davis' just-released EZ stations answer the call for fast and simple installations.... Tips to keep your rain collector tipping.... Davis launches its own "Star Search".... And an update on uploading.... Enjoy!
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Davis Weather Stations - EZ stations just in time for the holidays
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With the release of our new Wireless stations this past summer, requests flooded in for pre-assembled, easy-install, NON-wireless versions. As is so often the case when our customers call, we marshaled our forces and responded in spades.
So, for those of you who've been clamoring for ultra-quick, ultra-simple installations, we'd like to introduce the Davis EZ-Mount Weather Stations! The EZ-Mount is a complete package system that includes anemometer, temperature sensor, rain collector, system shelter, radiation shield, console and protected junction box, all pre-wired and pre-assembled for, essentially, "plant n' play" installation. Choose the Weather Wizard III or the Weather Monitor II model. Installation is a snap! Just open the box, plug the anemometer arm into the sensor array and the wind cups into the anemometer arm, mount the sensor array on a tripod, fence, pole or post, and then run the single wire into the house!
Or, avoid even that single wire by adding an EZ-Solar Power Kit! Power your EZ-Mount Station out in a field, on a mountain, or simply plant the whole stand-alone system, console included, on your roof or fence post.
The EZ stations, because of their sleek, powerful simplicity, make for fabulous birthday and holiday gifts. To find out more about Davis' EZ solutions, visit the complete line on the web at http:/www.davisnet.com/wxclub/ezmount.htm.
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How-To: Tips on keeping your rain collector tipping
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Our piece on keeping your weather station warm precipitated a torrent of comments on rain collectors:
Chris Dutton of Lancaster, Pennsylvania wrote, "I have a Weather Monitor II with an anemometer and rain gauge. During the summer months I have to check my rain gauge often for, err, debris. You see, the local birds love to perch on the edge. If I don't check it often, I end up with rain reports trickling in for hours after the rain has already stopped. Any ideas on how to keep the birds off?"
Psychically, Roger Booth of East Greenwich, Rhode Island wrote in a few minutes later with the following response, "The problem...with my Rain Collector is due to birds, especially doves, perching on the rim of the collector. I don't have to tell you where the droppings collect. The droppings turn to mush when they get wet and plug the drip hole in the base of the collector and the collector fills with water. My solution to the problem was to install 6 wooden toothpicks, the large party style, around the rim. I used shoe goo so that removal would be easy. I then wrapped a length of heavy thread around the toothpicks the length of the rim. The thread upsets the birds flight path and they stay off the rim of the collector, hence no droppings."
We ran Roger's solution by our tech support team and received this response from Brett Lane, Tech Support Supervisor and Bird Goo Guru:
"Roger Booth makes a good point. In fact, this is the only effective method we have heard of to date. One gentleman in San Luis Obispo, California, is effectively using a plastic ring fitted around his collector with 16 nails protruding upward. The theory is that birds will not land because the nails prevent them from closing their wings."
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Cool Applications: Davis' very own "Star Search"
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Sometimes the primary users of our stations are not quite as human as the rest of us. We discovered recently that one of our Weather Monitor II's had found its way into a dolphin training facility at The Mirage Casino and Hotel in Las Vegas. Julie Wignall, Director, Department of Animal Care at The Mirage says the casino bought the system when a local TV station (KTNV Las Vegas) invited The Mirage to be part of a local weather watching network for the station. Usually Julie calls in the conditions, but every so often, she considers handing the job off to one of the truly local, i.e. in-pool, residents.
Do you have a special use for your station that you'd like to share? Are you a firefighter monitoring matchbox conditions in a local forest? Or perhaps, a rowing club using a station to guarantee safe boating conditions? How 'bout a teacher using direct weather monitoring in a classroom setting to introduce children to science and the world they live in? Perhaps you've joined or formed your own local weather watching team? Or maybe you've come up with some awesome way to manipulate, analyze, or use the data you've collected?
Over the past four months, we've brought you cool applications from around the world. Now it's your chance to become a star. We are looking for weather station owners who'd like to share their enthusiasm with us and with their local community. We're often approached by the media with requests for local weather station owners. If you are willing to speak to a reporter and/or be featured in the newsletter or web site, email us at news@davisnet.com. Tell us who you are, where you are, and what you're doing. Your story does not have to be exotic, you just need to be involved and enthusiastic. Who knows, perhaps your picture will end up in a local paper! Or, possibly better yet, your group could garner some much-welcome publicity!
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Talk Back: Update on uploading
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Last month, club member Ray Vaughan asked if we could find a member who could explain how to get data posted to a web site automatically.
The first response comes from Kevin Leitch in Peoa, Utah, the same club member who proposed listing Davis data URLs on the web:
>The key to the automatic posting of data to the web is a shareware program called "NetLaunch" (available through http://www.tucows.com). I first set up WeatherLink to download from the Weather Monitor II every two hours on the hour. I then set up a scheduled event in NetLaunch to run a batch file event every two hours at 5 past the hour.
>NetLaunch takes care of my dial-up connection and then launches the batch file that runs a program I wrote which captures the video image, reads "download.txt" (produced by WeatherLink) and writes an HTML file. The batch file then runs "WS_FTP Lite" (also on http://www.tucows.com) which uploads the image and HTML files to my ISP. Once the batch file ends, NetLaunch closes my dial-up connection and waits until the next scheduled event.
>That's it, no great magic, no expensive commercial programs, just shareware.
A second response came from Lennart Jansson, a club member in Tjorn, Sweden. He writes, "Every hour, when the download.txt changes, another program starts. I wrote this program in Visual Basic - it takes the weather data in download.txt and replaces variables, such as [[wind]], with data, such as 12.2 mph, in an HTML document. Then the program uploads the file to the web site." You can visit Lennart's site at http://welcome.to/weather.tjorn.
Thanks for the replies, and we encourage anyone thinking about posting data on the web to use whatever solution works best for you.
Please don't hesitate to respond to news@davisnet.com with any suggestions, questions, or stories of your own. Let us know if you'd like your name or hometown to appear in the E-newsletter and, if so, remember to include it in your email!
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Corrections!
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We have a couple of corrections to make to last month's story on Hurricane Georges. We apologize to Donald B. McGehee for misspelling his name. Additionally, we indicated that Saba is located just southwest of Puerto Rico - another typo - it's just to the southeast. More specifically, Saba is approximately 30 miles south of St. Maarten and 40 miles northwest of St. Kitts-Nevis.
Also, a correction to last month's rain collector tip: We indicated that the optional rain collector heater has a thermostat that turns it on and off according to the weather. This is not true. The thermostat does not turn it on - you need to manually turn the heater on at its control box - but it does turn it off when the collector gets too warm.
We're sorry for any confusion!
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That's it for November's E-news! We look forward to hearing from you!
The Davis Weather Club E-newsletter
mailto:news@davisnet.com
