Starting a thread with roof mount ideas and links. Pictured below is a “non-pentrating” roof mount that supports a vertical mast. Great for flat roof situations. WeatherFlow uses these for our testing array as seen below. Approx US$50 on Amazon: http://a.co/dcSP4Uq
And one with adjustable pitch.
I am having a challenging time picking the right place to install/sit my SKY unit. In the attached picture the building on the left is two stories. The structure on the right is only a single story (mud room and three car garage). Any recommendations? My three leading candidate locations are:
a) Second story structure. Far right side, roof mount
b) Single story structure. Replace the weathervane on top of the cupola with the sky.
c) Single story structure. Roof mount all the way to the right of the cupola.
I’m concerned that option B & C will be blocked by the second story building to the West but perhaps there is enough distance between? I like either of these locations because they would be the easiest to service if I needed to check something or replace a battery.
With option A, you go high up and likely have no blocking from the surrounding area. It is difficult to maintain as roof access (especially in winter) can be challenging.
Do any of these locations require grounding to avoid damage from lightning strikes?
Given the shear size of your property I would pour a small concrete pad at the front of the home and install a pole for the Sky. No worries about lightning, obstruction, etc. 
Hi, Phoenix.
Should the pad go near the street or closer to the house? I was concerned by tree shade and the house blocking.
I was thinking closer to the street keeping in mind you should take into account seasonal changes etc. If it snows in your area ensure you respect how much snow mounds are created when snow clearing machines come by.
So if it was me and confirmed that huge tree in the yard doesn’t have a shadow during different times of day. The area I marked as blue would be my first option for placement for a Sky. Given that site you could mount as high / low as you wanted and also install guy wires if you believe its going to break ten feet.
Those would be good spots in better climates. City plows tend to do a good job destroying mailboxes and the like. Wi-Fi doesn’t tend to reach that far so that would be another reason to look elsewhere. I’d also be concerned about the ease of theft.
Do you think the roof line would be an decent option if those 4 locations you picked don’t work?
first the link between sky and air to the hub is radio (9xx mhz in the US I think and 8xx mhz in Europe for most) and not wifi and works pretty well over distance when open field (hence not walls like I have that are 50 cm thick 
) The hub uses wifi to link to your internal network, internet box
Roof is a good spot as long you can fix it solid via a pole with or without stabilisation wires. Sky is pretty sensitive to large swing (though algorithms clean that mostly out, but less it has to filter, the better)
Also observe your garden, we have some testers with nasty little birds using the sky as a landing pad 
… if you have those little birdies 
using your roof as observation platform … that might also become a problem …
As you can see testers and the Weatherflow team have already had fun with many factors that influence the sky unit (vibration, obstruction of light measuring etc …) 
Here is a non-penetrating pitched roof mount device from Video Mounting Products. I have seen this offered for as low as $75USD. The hard part is carrying the concrete blocks up to the roof to put in the frame to hold the mount in place (always check the sizes of the blocks vs. the size of the frame before you haul the blocks up to the roof - yes, I made this mistake once myself).
I haven’t mounted mine yet, but given the a tree line in my back yard I’m considering roof mounting mine using a WeatherMount2. This would give me about 35 feet height with the ~6 feet that the mount offers, which should fall in line with the 4:1 height difference rule of thumb… my only concern is whether the single mast would work well given the Sky’s sensitivity to motion. Will anyone else be using it with a pitch-roof mounted WeatherMount2 installation?
Drawing of my property below:
actually I don’t know about this weatherMount2 if it good or not for the SKY but I prefer to mount the SKY on your roof because the NOAA recommend to mounting the anemometer on height of 33 feet(10 meter) AGL to get best result of the wind speed.
I have a brick chimney and will be mounting my pole to it using this: https://www.ebay.com/itm/EZ-28-24-Z-Style-Chimney-Mount-with-Galvanized-Straps-TV-Antenna-Mast-Bracket/390742732691?ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT&_trksid=p2060353.m2749.l2649
We don’t get much lightning here but I still don’t want to worry about it. If I use a conductive pole should I also install a ground wire? There is a stainless steel flue sleeve to the pellet stove but that is the only metal near the mount.
Best practices is to always ground any metal object with the appropriate gauge of copper wire. As short and straight as possible with no bends in the ground wire. The wire needs to be secured to a ground rod inserted into the ground no less than five feet or based on NEC / CEC codes.
When measured the ground plane should be below 50 ohms or less.
Should the ground plane be higher due to soil / environmental conditions using parallel grounding rods linked continuously will help achieve the (50 & Below) Ohms of resistance. Any metal screws and bolts should be applied with anti-seize compound to ensure future maintenance can be completed.
Don’t bother using lithium grease, WD-40, Vaseline, as it won’t hold up over the years.
