Topic: My weather station.

[larrystein]

Hi All, I have only just joined your forum so I guess I better tell you a little about me. I live in Exeter, Devon, UK. I am 40 something. I honestly don't keep track of things like my age. I'm too busy with other more immediate problems to worry about long term things. I am the father of two (one of each, both still at home), divorced, disabled and trying to get my amateur radio licence. However, getting a licence in Exeter is impossible at the moment as no club around here is holding the exams. I cannot travel far because of my condition so it looks like I will have to wait for an indefinite time.

Anyway, I digress. And now for the weather.

I have been interested in the weather for some years, since my physical condition became weather dependent and since my divorce I have found myself finding things to do to occupy my time, so I built my weather station. I have osteoarthritis and JHS so don't get a lot of able time to work on my "To do list". However I did get a bit of time to take some photos of my QTH to show you my QFH and weather station.
 
So, here's my QFH.



It is made from 8mm copper pipe and a clear 32mm acrylic pipe. I think it looks much better than the ones you sometimes see made from white or grey plastic plumbing 32mm pipe. I have seen some without a central support but think it would be too likely to bend in the wind. It was quite a bit more expensive than plumbing pipe at around £4 per meter but I like the look much more than my original one from plumbing tube.

 A sample image from NOAA 19.



The image quality could be better but my QFH is not high enough and I have no preamp on it yet.

Here is my anemometer and vane, you may recognize what kit it is from.



Yes, it is a WH1080.

And finally my Stephenson screen and rain gauge.



The screen is made from 4 of 9" x 6" DIY shop plastic vents, they are not good enough in there bought condition so I double primed and double painted them with left over car paint for extra insulation (not spatter cans but proper spray gun and compressor) and a two meter length of 50mmx50mm sawn timber. Oh and a piece of 9mm ply I found laying around in the garage.

And yes! I know the screen should be away from the garage wall and the rain gauge should be higher or at least away from the wall. I just haven't had the time or inclination to move them yet. Oh! and while I'm on the subject of my to do list, the QFH is going up higher in the near future also.


So, what do you think?

Larry

[Mark / Ohio]

Welcome to the forum Larry!   

[Axelvold]

Welcome Larry

Your setup looks really good, do you have a blueprint for the QFH?

What rig and software are you using?

Regards from Sweden

Lars

[W Thomas]

Welcome Larry

Your setup looks good and seems to work even better!

[Hitbylightning]

Looks great.  I'm interested in the QFH as well.  A friend is building a kit receiver for me, so I'll soon be looking for the QFH.  Is height an issue, or clearance?  I was thinking of building mine out of copper pipe and placing it on a plinth in the front garden - serving dual purposes - not sure many of my neighbours would suspect the strange piece of garden art was actually receiving signals from satellites.  My plan was a turnstile type aerial on the roof supplementing the QFH on the ground.

[larrystein]

Looks great.  I'm interested in the QFH as well.  A friend is building a kit receiver for me, so I'll soon be looking for the QFH.  Is height an issue, or clearance?  I was thinking of building mine out of copper pipe and placing it on a plinth in the front garden - serving dual purposes - not sure many of my neighbours would suspect the strange piece of garden art was actually receiving signals from satellites.  My plan was a turnstile type aerial on the roof supplementing the QFH on the ground.

It's best to get it as high as you can. Clearance is not an issue as it is only 375mm at its widest point. and the hight of the elements are only 560mm. However, that is supposing you use 8mm copper. There is a 15mm copper one on the internet but it needs to be bigger to resonate at the required frequency. So, this ones quite small really.

The Quadrifilar Helical antenna is better performing than a turnstile. So you might want to do that the other way round. You could always say you we're trying out roof art 

The one I made first was a coax cable and plastic conduit version from here. http://www.m0nde.co.uk/CVLQFA.htm It worked nicely but didn't look nice. So, the second one I built is from this website. http://www.askrlc.co.uk/. However, I am going to be making The Tall Narrow one here. http://perso.wanadoo.es/dimoni/ant_qha.htm Just for comparison purposes.

As for Alexvold's questions: I am only using a scanner with modifications, a Realistic PRO 2006 and Wxtoimg. However, I now have an amateur licence from Eumetsat to receive their low rate images from 0°, every half hour, from their FTP server. So, will be needing to buy David Taylors MSG Data Manager sometime.

You can get some nice images from Eumetsat. Here is an example: I've had to reduce the quality and size considerably to fit it on the forum (more than 2X smaller).



It's not as much fun as getting it yourself from the satellite but the images are better, more consistent and every half hour.

Anyway, I have had a lot of fun doing it.


Thanks for your interest.

Larry

[larrystein]

Oh! and can someone check my web page and see if it is updating properly?

http://www.larrystein.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/Weather/

Thanks

[Mark / Ohio]

Oh! and can someone check my web page and see if it is updating properly?

http://www.larrystein.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/Weather/

Thanks

It was showing Sept 6, 22:25 when I checked just now.  Your current time I think is Sept 7, 04:53

Your post spurred me to try something I had been thinking about doing for along time after seeing others here capturing the satellite signals.  So I downloaded WXtoImg on my laptop, connected my PRO 95 scanner up to it, and paralleled a line from my scanner discone antenna I use for my NOAA weather feed to Weather Underground.  First images where unusable but after getting the volume adjusted properly I received the grainy NOAA 15 image below.  It worked despite my quickly cobbled together setup.    I don't know if I will pursue it any further as far as getting a better receiver / antenna setup and posting them to my web page.  But it will go on the list of possibilities at some point along with many other things when I get a new weather computer.  That software is pretty darn neat with all it's options!  

[Hitbylightning]

Station is still updating.

[larrystein]

Station is still updating.

Thanks for that.

Could you check it again as I have changed some stuff and used another java script?

Should update every 15 seconds.

Thanks

Larry

EDIT: I don't leave it running all night as I am on a low income. So, it won't update between about 2359 to 0830 UTC most days.

[larrystein]

Yes! The time difference is because I went to bed early that day.
Wxtoimg is good isn't it. It's better when you register. I'm not associated in any way with the author, just to pre-empt any comments. I have registered my version and it filters the audio file a lot better than it did before I registered. And you get 3d image transforms too!


Thanks

Larry
  

[Hitbylightning]

Updating every 15 seconds - don't forget to change that in the description on your site - it still says updating every 15 minutes