So, I've bit the bullet after about a year or so going back and forth - Ryan from Scaled Instruments helped me a LOT with my decision.
My Davis 6152, logger and Anemometer Transmitter Kit looks like it will arrive tomorrow to feed my geekish needs but I have some questions about siting the anemometer. Reading through the forums, I seem to be in a similar tradeoff that other's have found themselves in, and looking for suggestions
Location is in the Pocono Mountains in a fairly wooded area
Looking at mounting the anemometer separate from the rest of the unit. The ISS/Temp/Rain/etc will be mounted on a 4x4 that I will be putting about 6' off the ground on my back lawn near the septic mound/leach field - abt 20-30' from the house and 20' from the tree line behind it, and 30-40' from trees on one side ... 100' from the tree line on the other... best place I can put it so that its out of the way enough to prevent wifeagro for it being in the middle of the yard
for the anemometer - my choices are
1) Chimney Mount:
I have a wood burning fireplace, it is only used in the winter once or twice a week (not for home heating, but for hanging out by the fire). The chimney is on one side of the house and the ground is on the other - so I assume if I go with an antenna mount, put the wind sensor abt 10' above the chimney (~45' off ground) and away from most trees, that I will need to ground the pole/unit and talk to a local electrician to find out if I need to connect to the ground on the other side of the house or just bury the copper rod 8' down
2) I have an eave over an attic window that overlooks the garage roof. I could mount a crossbar and put the wind sensor 10' above the roof that way - which is near the house electrical ground
3) mount it on a tripod in the rear of the home, near where I am placing the rest of the unit - this would not be able to go above the tree line (and could bring negative wife acceptance factor
The home faces just south of due east - so the chimney and eaves mounts will have sun nearly all day (noon is right over the roof the majority of the year).
The chimney mount will be the least 'impact' to the home (ground wire dependent) while the eaves mount will be the easiest to reach for maintenance (climb out window onto roof).
Bing shows a fairly good image of the house - more trees have been taken down since Sandy, but otherwise good view.
http://binged.it/1wMRTUZ You can see the chimney on the left, and the main roof's peak/eave on the right
I have a tendency to overthink things - so I'm hoping that someone can provide their opinion and why either of the two spots are better (or a toss up)
Thanks in advance! been finding a LOT of great info here