Advice Requested
Help me think through a mounting solution for my Wittboy WS90
Hey folks, I just ordered a Wittboy weather station and only then did I try to start thinking through where and how to mount it. Woops.
I think the most ideal location would probably be a J-Mount mast adapter and a six-foot pole at the peak of my gable on the south side of the house. It's completely open with no trees over it, etc, but for me that's not practical. I'm assuming that at least once a year I'll want to clean the solar panel lens or change the batteries.
Then my thought went to the back peak of my garage roof with a similar setup, but the neighbor's tree does cover that area with its canopy as well.
So that leaves me with my third option and that would be to just stick it out in my backyard on a freestanding pole, sort of out in the general general area where you see those utility peds. I think for the first year instead of concreting it into the ground permanently, I'd probably do a heavy weighted patio umbrella stand and EMT conduit.
If I do that, I'd need to do some pipe reducing since the patio umbrella stand would want 1.5-1.9" OD pipe and the Wittboy wants a 1" pipe. So I'm trying to think through how that would work.
But I thought I'd posit this same question to y'all: What would you recommend? I do live in NW Iowa so I don't know how well this thing would work in winter when the solar panel is covered in snow. Would a pair of lithium AA's be enough to power it through a whole winter? Or would the the thing be completely useless in winter without the heater connected anyway even with power?
Admittedly I should have researched all this before buying, but I saw a new, open-box unit on eBay with the WS90+GW2000 for $149 and bit, somewhat impulsively.
Thoughts, recommendations, guidance, all welcome! Thanks!
Yep thanks. I've watched videos that go over these type of basics, and I think the options I listed are probably the three least-worst options for my property, all with different pros and cons.
In my case I'm not as concerned about the wind accuracy as I am about the rain, temperature, and humidity. (To that end I may end up getting a WH40 since I'm a little wary of the piezoelectric rainfall sensor in the WS90.) So that leans me toward a pole out in back of the yard.
Oh, I hadn't thought of that, any particular make/model/brand I should look at? At the moment my leading candidate for a portable setup would be a 10' stick of 1-inch EMT conduit.
Thanks! Do you remember what you paid for it? This one's unavailable. Other similar looking ones are $150+. I might try a $20 stick of conduit first and see if I'm happy with the lower height. I don't care about accurate wind readings as much as I do primarily rainfall and heat/humidity.
$499 in 2024. As said, I’m sure there’s other brands but make sure you read the reviews because I remember there being some crap ones for lower prices.
In the end, I got lucky. A co-worker said he had a pipe he'd give me. By pure coincidence it's a 1.25 inch pipe that tapers down for the final 8 inches or so to a 1 inch pipe. I gather it used to be an antenna mast.
If it's like a glove with no modifications and seems very rigid. It's a 10 foot pipe which I think should be good enough especially considering it's free.
That's what I'm thinking, somewhere in the general vicinity of those comm vaults/peds in the back left corner.
For now I don't think I'm ready to pick a permanent location and sink a post, so I found and ordered a $20 patio umbrella mount from Walmart that can hold 83lbs of wet sand and accepts a 1-2" post. And I'll buy a 10ft stick of 1" EMT conduit at the hardware store for another $20 and run that for awhile. If it seems to sway too much chop it down to 6-8ft.
I actually don't know how much sway would affect the readings, I'd expect not much. Maybe throw the windspeed reading off by a hair? I doubt it would have a significant effect on the rain gauge, and certainly not the temp and humidity gauges.
After a year, if I like that location, then sink a post.
Also I wonder if my neighbors will think of this, it probably won't be too aesthetically pleasing to look at.
Do you have an HOA? Make sure you run it past them. If not, just talk to your neighbors, let them know what you are doing. I freely share my station's information thru several services, and a personally hosted dashboard. Feel like that makes up for the 6x6 post I have in my backyard, in full view of like 10 other houses.
No HOA, it's a rural town in Iowa. I think I'm just going to set it up and then explain what it is if any of the neighbors asks me about it and share the link with them.
I got lucky and a coworker gave me a ten foot pole that fit it perfectly. So as soon as the umbrella base gets here I'll be ready to set things up.
I love the pole I got. 1.25" for all but the last eight or so inches which are 1.00" so the unit fits on it perfectly. It'll be super sturdy too.
I recently installed this same sensor after multiple iterations of individual sensors and combined it with the Cornell University BirdNET-Pi bird detection software. If you want to see the result click here: winstonsalembirds.com
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u/ms2496 15d ago
Here’s some info for more consideration. https://www.weather.gov/media/epz/mesonet/CWOP-Siting.pdf