[Xastir] Weather station to use with Xastir

[Gerry Creager]

Tom Russo wrote:
> On Mon, Dec 10, 2007 at 12:13:06PM -0800, we recorded a bogon-computron collision of the <archer at eskimo.com> flavor, containing:
>> The Lacrosse and Oregon Scientific/Huger/Radio Shack types give you
>> lots of sensors out of the box, but they might not last as long.
> 
> I would say that you should avoid LaCrosse equipment at all costs.  It is
> cheap, fragile, and of low accuracy.  
> 
> My LaCrosse unit lasted about 6 months before the rain sensor gave up the ghost,
> and a little longer before the wind sensor died.  It is now nothing more than
> a temperature and humidity sensor, and of no value for APRS weather (because
> it basically causes the probe software to hang until it times out now that
> the wind sensor doesn't report properly).
> 
> And from the day I got it, the barometer was a problem, giving extremely poor
> quality data (according to the quality control program from the 
> gladstonefamily.net site).
> 
> Get a good one, don't waste money on LaCrosse junk.

Just to chime in again... as if I never have opinions...

I'd like to selfishly concur w/ Tom.  Especially if you do join CWOP. 
Please get the best quality you can.  We really do use your data.  I use 
it for data assimilation at the surface into weather prediction models. 
  So does the National Weather Service.  Emergency managers use it when 
there's wildfires or chemical spills/plumes. DoD uses it to train 
meteorologists (they see CWOP and a whole lot of other data on my Texas 
Mesonet site, and use it in their training).  Getting the data in is 
important and getting good data are also important.

I'm proposing a program to look at using weather instruments like the 
Davis and Peet gear for more rigorous purposes, assuming we can 
incorporate some basic metadata about the hardware and its installation 
and maintenance, such as research and climatological applications.

Tom's anecdote about the LaCrosse instruments is grim.  I'm sorry to 
hear that.  The weather business needs lower cost, usable instruments if 
we're going to ever get sufficient densification of the observing 
network to verify, and improve our forecasts.  Taking advantage of the 
data offered us from volunteers like APRS-WX and CWOP gets us a long 
ways toward that densification.  The data *are* important and appreciated.

gerry
-- 
Gerry Creager -- gerry.creager at tamu.edu
Texas Mesonet -- AATLT, Texas A&M University	
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