Topic: What happens to old Weather Stations that wear out?

[WeatherEnthusiastNZ]

I've heard that after a few years weather stations start to lose their accuracy. It seems a shame, as then tons of inaccurate data would be getting uploaded to WU and other sites. It would be neat if there was a calculation which would account for the difference in accuracy as the device ages. Even if a Weather Station does start to become more inaccurate after 5 years, I'm guessing that most people would not simple take their station down and chuck it out. They'd keep it up, even though it is starting to get inaccurate. And some Weather Stations cost a lot of money, so I can see why people would not want to buy replacements and instead keep their current station going that they paid $100-$2000 for. What is a good solution to stations that get older and less accurate?

[Waimarie]

Mine went in the bin!   It refused to communicate with the console/PC

[ocala]

Generally it's just 2 things. The temp/humid sensor and the anemometer. Those by them selves aren't really that expensive and can be replaced. The pressure sensor is usually located in the console and can be adjusted by comparing to local stations. The temp/humid sensor is a different story. Those variables can change in a very short distance based on different factors. It's called a micro-climate. But first you would need a sensor to determine if yours  really needs replaced. Other things like circuit boards, solar panels, and rain tipping gauges can be repaired relatively cheap. If the owner is attentive to his equipment these issues are usually taken care of pretty quickly.  But you are right in one sense that some people buy a weather station, put it up and forget about it. You can usually spot these on a map pretty quickly.

[DaleReid]

This question raises some interesting concerns.

If a company makes a station too good, there is no repeat business.  Some of us get a warm fuzzy feeling by having a station that is functional still running, tweaking those sensors as Ocala mentioned, that don't stand up over time, like Temp and Humidity.I have some Texas Weather Instruments stuff that is pushing 30 years old and other than not being wireless, are actually some of my favorite stations. But the company is no longer here.

Another issue hinted at in the original post is what about feeding erroneous data to.... somewhere.  Does that make a difference?   I use my stations for my hobby and really don't care if someone else looks at the data on my web page, which surprisingly locals seem to do since I get a call or text when a station is offline, but I suspect that the local astronomers are looking at the twilight times more than my wx data. 

But has the enormous amount of shared data made a difference in any way?  There already are many official stations gathering data, and as the MesoWest pages show, most are automated.  Airports traditionally have those functions, as do Ranger stations and DNR, along with increasing numbers of highway departments with weather stations associated with monitoring road conditions.  Most look to be very upper end stuff, and would have the budget to calibrate them say nothing of swapping out malfunctioning sensors.  But do our data really contribute to the overall science of meteorology or is just something we do?

I am much more into the moment, looking at current conditions, and maybe a few days back. But with WeeWx, and a host of other programs that not only display data, but file it into databases, I'm amazed at the number of folks who take great pains to import year's worth of data into their upgrades or adoption of a new program.  I will never, ever, look back a few months to see the minute by minute data points I have gathered, so I really neither care if it is stored, or how to access it.  There are those who really DO care, but like my mother saving old issues of National Geographic magazines, as wonderful as they were, no one really digs one out any more, and libraries refuse to take them, despite families making the hard decision to part with a couple tons of high gloss paper.

Anyway, the nice thing is one size doesn't fit all.  And I have an old house, a 1940s Aeronca Champ, a 1976 old car to tinker with, and a few ancient garden tractors that give me great pleasure, along with the old weather stations.  So I don't junk stuff easily, but when I kick the bucket, I'm sure the first thing my wife will do is not start listing on eBay and Craigslist, but the call for the dumpster, extra large.

[WeatherEnthusiastNZ]

Thanks for your thoughtful responses.

[BrianLehan]

I invested in a Davis Pro unit in the hopes that it would outlast me, and for the most part It has held up very well.

Outside of normal maintenance such as batteries, I have had rain gauge issues. In both cases the unit wasn't reporting at all, so no issue with incorrect data being sent per-say, just no data being sent.

The unit stopped reporting even though I could hear the see-saw bucket tipping. I called support and the great folks at Davis sent me new Diodes free of charge which fixed that issue. Then a few years later the tipping bucket kept sticking on one side, and I may have damaged it with my soldering when I installed the new diode so I just ordered a new bucket, which is the new single bucket design. It was easy to replace with simple tools, plug and play.

If other instruments fail they seem to have exact replacement, on in my case with the rain gauge updated design parts for everything so I'm glad I went the Davis route. I looked at a few units when I was looking to buy, and narrowed it down to Davis, RadioShack and believe it or not Heathkit. The Davis was the most expensive but so far it was the right choice for me.

As far as anything technology based, I recycle, re-use/re-purpose, before dumping what can't into a landfill. There are plenty of tech recycle places that take technology based technology free of charge.
 
Brian