WeatherlinkIP vs WeatherHub AMBNSLU2 IP Server vs PC serial

[PVWX]

I have been thinking about getting a wx station for years and am finally ready make it happen.  After reading all the inputs on this form I realize that the VP2 is the way to go.  I want to post my data to the web and be able to periodically review detailed data of my station on my mac or pc (neither have a serial 9 pin port).
Thus, my next issue, is what method do I use for posting to the web.  I like the idea of the WLIP so that I don’t have to leave the computer on.  However, according to the Davis people, it will only post to their web site (weatherlink.com) and then weatherlink.com can port over to one more site (i.e. wunderground).  The WLIP fastest update rate is one minute to weatherlink.com.  That seems slow compared to data I see on the web.
A few questions:
1. Is posting to wunderground only (vs. CWOP...) adequate? Is it better to post to more than one site?   I’m new to all of this.
2. Is one minute updates adequate? (it seams that  windgusts data would be missed)
3. On Wunderground - I see reference to “Rapid Fire” and “Normal”.  It appears that “Rapid Fire” updates every 3 seconds.  I’m guessing I have to be running software on a PC (always on for that).  How desirable is this?

As an alternative, I saw the  WeatherHub IP server advertised on ‘Ambient Weather’.  From reading the description, it appears that it does not require uploads to their site (like the WeatherLinkIP does). It does not say, however, that it will send to multiple sites.  It also says that it uploads every 15 seconds and stores 2 years of data on a flash card - cool.
One big drawback that I am guessing is that I would have to purchase the WeatherHub and the Davis data logger thus increasing my expense quite a bit.

4. Does anyone have any comments on this?
5. Is going the “ serial data logger to PC (always on) a better way to go?  Why? (If I go this route I will need to add a serial port card to my PC)
6. Any other suggestions that you can offer would be appreciated.

Thanks

[d_l]

The WL.com site only uploads to weather underground every 15-minutes and it doesn't upload the 10-minute wind gust data that WU wants so you would have no wind gust readings at WU if you use WL.com to send your data. I'm not certain that the WL.com site has the CWOP upload function working yet either.

Ambient's server is really a Meteohub server sold under their name.  I'd hate to take business away from them, but if you are technically minded you can "roll" your own by buying the component parts more cheaply and a software license from Meteohub.  See this site: http://www.meteohub.de/joomla/index.php for more info on what the Meteohub server is cable of handling.  Even if you buy from Ambient (and you do get a 3-year warranty for that price!), you will still have to visit the Meteohub site for any software updates.

I have both the WLIP and the Meteohub.  They will work together, but there are some annoying data output conflicts that you have to put up with/work around.  If you are not at all interested in using WL software to keep your data records or analyze weather data, then you should use a serial logger with the Meteohub.  I wanted to be able to download a data copy into WL (I like it) AND have the Meteohub handling WU and my website uploads.

Another reason to get the WLIP is that if you have multiple computers on your LAN network, you can access the data logger from any of them without one computer having to be on all the time.

[johnd]

A couple of comments (IMO):

I don't personally see much point in updating web data more frequently than once per minute unless you have a configuration that can update every 2-3 seconds. The only weather parameters that generally change often enough to merit frequent updates are wind speed and direction. The duration of a wind gust is generally taken to be 2-3 seconds (eg by WMO standards) so unless you're updating often enough to reflect individual wind gusts (ie every 2-3 secs) then really what's the point of doing so say every 10 or 20 seconds - you're not capturing genuine detail in the wind data and are unnecessarily uploading a lot of redundant other data.

On the WLIP vs MeteoHub-like devices vs PCs this really comes down to budget and psychology IMO. People often don't like the idea of leaving a standard PC running 24/7 because of issues like energy wastage. But there are some PCs that you can buy and use as a dedicated weather PC that are physically very small and inconspicuous, consume little power and yet have sufficient CPU power to act as a server for weather data. Something like the B202 Asus EeeBox is quite a neat package, only consumes around 20W (ie just 5-10% of a standard desktop), runs quiet and cool, runs Windows XP just like a standard desktop and yet has sufficient CPU power to act as a weather server. You can go to even lower power consumption with something like a Fit-PC that will use just 5W or thereabouts, although CPU performance is correspondingly lower too, but still often adequate for simple WX tasks.

You'll gather I quite like the standard PC approach because you can run all the standard PC software and then just choose whichever WX package you like the most. The only catch is that it will cost maybe $250 for the PC - lower performance and physical size doesn't yet seem to equate with really low pricing. But the money saved by being able to use say a standard Davis logger rather than the 6555 part will go a long way towards the PC cost.

[Sigdigit]

Welcome to the forum!  I went through all the same questions you have in the past year, many of them are answered in these two topics:

http://www.wxforum.net/index.php?topic=1164.0
http://www.wxforum.net/index.php?topic=2654.0

I finally went with the serial WL version. Then I just bought a very low power netbook computer that I will be leaving on 24/7.  I still need to get the 10 dollar serial to USB adaptor.
See http://www.wxforum.net/index.php?topic=3197.0