New WF station arrived mounted but reading problems

Tempest Owners
1

I received my new WF station, Appeared nice and sturdy.
I have mounted my station next to my Davis VP2 to compare readings before I trust any new system.
Here are some of the issues I have encountered so far.

Sunday 12-2-2018
We had rain today
Davis rain gauge .69
WF .28
We had light rain all day , Not mist a light rain WF could not detect
it.

Wind direction was all over the place

Davis was NNE
WF W, SW, NE,S, SE

Fogged rolled in
WF showed winds up to 6 MPH
Davis was calm winds.(I know the Davis it is less sensitive but all day I monitored both system davis would read 2 MPH winds when WF was at 2 MPH also)

**Barometer **

Davis 29.60 Local stations around me were 29.59 , 29.61
29.60

WF 29.68

I also observed sporadic wind gust from WF throughout the day
I would see calm winds, A big jump to 6 MPH then immediately goto 0 mph Davis stayed at 0 MPH

So far in my 2 days of using this unit I am not impressed.
I am not convinced my data is accurate enough from WF to send to the NOAA

This system was going to be on an 1000 foot mountain.
I am not sure I can trust the readings. Maybe this system is not designed for cold weather, or rainy conditions or even fog.
It seams any of these conditions so far has made the system, act erratic.

Is there to get into the hub to make changes, Low power / High power.
Change update times for windspeed / Temp ETC.

Lets see how another week goes with this system.

ID -5840 If you would like to look at the data.
I can send my Davis data if you want to compare.

Any ideas would be great.
Another station close to meID 4873
Matches my davis readings but not my WF in some cases.

Thanks

Dan
Amateur Radio (K1DED)

2

First : welcome to the community @k1ded.

Thanks for your report.

In this Forum we are already discussing almost all points you mentioned in several threads (aka topics).

Behind the measurements there is a auto calibration system. Hence, after a couple of days the values (for which the system is activated yet ) will get closer to the surrounding measurements.

For rain detection, for example, the process is not activated yet (3rd dec).

For wind actually a firmware update is in beta testing… you will see an improvement. But, compared to your Davis station, take into account, the difference in measurement principal. Sky is measuring massless and samples every 3 s (I suppose you didn’t activated power save mode). Hence, especially for gusts a huge difference in measurement results is possible and, not to say, expected.

I will be looking forward for your report after another week.

Maybe you want to put some pictures of your setup-situation either here or to the dedicated threads :

Maybe the community as additional hints for you.:wink:

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3

I will post some pictures of my sitting.
The davis and WF are almost side by side on a tower 40 feet in the air. They are separated by 3 feet.
I will see how it goes after a few days.
I am not sure what you mean massless I would assume if WF shows winds at 8 MPH my davis would at least read 1 or 2 MPH it is very good at 40 feet measuring light winds.
Our fog was heavy with visibility less then 1/8 of a mile.
It appears this affected the wind readings on WF.
I will monitor it today. I was under the impression that the windspeed was measured every second, I could of read it wrong. I know Davis is every 2.5 seconds.
Will post some pictures. I also need to test if my Amateur radios on HF running 1000 watts will effect the readings. The WF in mounted 5 feet under the beam.
I will be checking 160-10 meters.

Thanks

Dan
Amateur Radio (K1DED)

4

An ultrasonic can measure fluke gusts better than a spinning cup setup, where the wind has to overcome the mass of the cups (and the friction of the bushings).

20180318165938-647049e9-xx
20180318165938-647049e9-xx1656Ă—1242 318 KB

For what it’s worth, my Sky and Davis VP2 are mounted side by side on the same 20-foot mast, and they track within a few degrees of each other and with almost identical averages/gusts…

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