Author Topic: Ice Storm and Anemometers (again)  (Read 2873 times)

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Offline miraculon

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Ice Storm and Anemometers (again)
« on: January 24, 2018, 08:57:03 AM »
We had an ice storm Monday. This is pretty much the same story as before, RM Young vane OK but propeller not spinning. This time it has some interesting icicles formed by centrifugal force that make it look like some kind of Dutch windmill. Picture attached, but it didn't come out all that well. The sun was lighting up the radial icicles and I thought that it looked pretty cool  8-)

Both my mast mounted VP2 and the low mount ISS wind set were frozen up. I was able to reach the ISS mounted one and free it up, but with the added mass of the ice it will not be accurate until the big thaw comes. The local Marina's VP2 set is also frozen up, both direction and speed.

I am hoping for melting and freeing up by maybe Thursday or definitely Friday. Still too cold for today at 15°F.

DaleReid, did you get your Alpine RM Young up yet? Is it any better for this? (not that the budget or roof climbing will allow this for me)

Greg H.
« Last Edit: March 20, 2020, 01:11:40 PM by miraculon »


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Offline Otis

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Re: Ice Storm and Anemometers (again)
« Reply #1 on: January 24, 2018, 01:55:24 PM »
Greg, as of right now my VP@, roof mounted, is still spinning.  :-)
Think we were a bit colder than you so our precip was more frozen than yours.

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Offline DaleReid

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Re: Ice Storm and Anemometers (again)
« Reply #2 on: January 24, 2018, 07:32:01 PM »
We had the rain, changing to exceptionally sloppy snow, then to snow, then 9 degrees F overnight.

Attached is a picture of one of the 'test bed' Rainwise Mark IIIs and it looks as if it will be awhile before it spins on its own.

The Rainwise on the roof of the shed was spinning merrily away.  As an aside a couple years ago the one on the shed did exactly what you describe, Greg, with the rain being thrown from the prop freezing and the icicles were radially away from the rotation.  Very unusual, and I'd have guessed it would never have occurred again, but it did for you.

Neither the RM Young Alpine, nor the regulars, froze.  I have three up, and all are spinning nicely.  Also up there were the Davis and the Peet Brothers and all are happy.  The Texas Wx Instruments did get slogged down but I wonder if the bearings are flaky since it sometimes is stationary when the others are spinning away. 

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Offline DaleReid

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Re: Ice Storm and Anemometers (again)
« Reply #3 on: January 24, 2018, 07:32:45 PM »
 My browser wouldn't load the message and pix, so here they are
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Offline DaleReid

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Re: Ice Storm and Anemometers (again)
« Reply #4 on: January 24, 2018, 07:34:58 PM »
the trees
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Offline DaleReid

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Re: Ice Storm and Anemometers (again)
« Reply #5 on: January 24, 2018, 07:37:56 PM »
Here is my Low Earth Orbit Quadrifilar Helix and you can clearly see which way the wind was blowing from during the snowfall.
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Offline miraculon

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Re: Ice Storm and Anemometers (again)
« Reply #6 on: January 25, 2018, 08:44:20 AM »
Thanks DaleReid. On Weathernation this morning they had an image from NWS Gaylord (MI) that did the same thing as mine. Better close-up picture from their Twitter feed.



Greg H.


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Offline vreihen

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Re: Ice Storm and Anemometers (again)
« Reply #7 on: January 25, 2018, 06:28:48 PM »
Here is my Low Earth Orbit Quadrifilar Helix and you can clearly see which way the wind was blowing from during the snowfall.

Out of curiosity, how does that antenna perform near the horizon close to AOS or LOS?  It sure looks better than yagis and two-axis rotors for those who don't like the Death Star look on their roof.....
WU Gold Stars for everyone! :lol:

Offline DaleReid

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Re: Ice Storm and Anemometers (again)
« Reply #8 on: January 25, 2018, 07:32:59 PM »
Oh, the quad.  I  was heavily into receiving the NOAA satellites lower resolution images.  Never got into the HRPT with the costs and real necessity of having a tracking system, although I really wanted one bad.

The quad would have been a bit beyond my ability to make, but a guy in Chicago, only a part day's drive away, was making them out of good copper tubing.  With good low loss RG-8 and a stable preamp, I had AOS withing 7 degrees elevation, and sometimes 5 or so, but hard to know for sure with the bigger hills all around at different azimuth.  This thing never had any drop outs or fades, ever.  If there wasn't a storm in the area, all the receptions were rock solid from AOS to LOS, and it was really fun to come home from work and go to the computer to check what had been received that day.  I had to select which satellite was going to be the best for my interests, and with a single frequency non-computer controlled frequency selection, tuned it to the one I wanted and it woke things up when AOS began and recorded to LOS, so the non-dropout status was helpful.

I've not fired up the old DartCom receiver (from England if I recall) with the necessary bandwidth in the front end to pass the entire downlink plus doppler, and went into a board that was custom made by a couple guys down in Titusville, FL that sold them to enthusiasts like me, and wrote much of our own software to play with it.

Now I think that other receivers are much more available, Quorum and a Special Interest Group had a project for awhile, but I think that has all faded away.  Now a signal on the audio input can be grabbed and with all the neat stuff for the other frequency monitors, there may be even a way for those newfangled SDR sticks to work, but don't know if they are mainly FM or not.

I may have to dust things off again just to hear that click-clock-click-clock of the signal and watch the line by line picture accumulate.  I know that McIdas from the UW, Madison Space Science and Engineering has some mighty fine tracking antennas and also get feeds from other centers to make the HRPT stuff available on line, but ever since my old Wx Professor Vernor Soumi let me watch him and a couple engineers get a signal from his experiment on a Tiros or some such, I've been interesting in this.

Anyway, if you can build a quad or find someone with one for that band for sale without too much of a hit and you are still doing this hobby, it is a whole different world than the crossed dipoles and a lot simpler and no fussy compared to the Yaesu tracking rotors.

Long answer, but maybe it will spur some discussion about satellite picture reception and can move over to that thread.
Dale


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Offline miraculon

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Re: Ice Storm and Anemometers (again)
« Reply #9 on: January 26, 2018, 04:49:07 PM »
We had our thaw today and the anemometers are working again.

Greg H.


Blitzortung Stations #706 and #1682
CoCoRaHS: MI-PI-1
CWOP: CW4114 and KE8DAF-13
WU: KMIROGER7
Amateur Radio Callsign: KE8DAF

Offline DaleReid

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Re: Ice Storm and Anemometers (again)
« Reply #10 on: January 26, 2018, 06:42:57 PM »
One of the last times we had a plunge below normal it was that way for three weeks.  I'm not sure with minimal sunlight and five to twenty degrees below seasonal averages that they would have thawed as easily. 

Glad that heat has done its trick.

Still a lot of fun, isn't it?
Dale
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