Weather Stations

I'm looking at getting a weather station to place near my observatory. Can anyone who owns one make a recommendation. I prefer a full spread of data including wind speed and direction, humidity, temp, precip, and pressure. I also prefer a solar powered wireless setup where I can have multiple workstations and/or consoles (one for the home and one for the obsevatory).

So far the one's I've looked at are the Davis Wireless Vantage Pro2 and the Peet Bros. ULTIMETER® Weather Stations.

I appreciate any input. Cost is not a factor, so if there are higher end stations please make your recommendations.

Thanks

Louis:

I really can't help you, I am hoping to benefit from your inquiry. We have a second home up in the mountains, I am most interested in the wind, it's a rare day when the maximum wind speed in under 20mph. Currently we have a $100 Accurite Unit, a similar unit without rain is $50. It's actually pretty good but a better unit would be nice.

I think wireless is important, we have our sensing unit on top of a unused Telephone pole about a 100 feet from the house. It's an ideal location cable but it would be impractical if it were not wireless.

An important feature for us is the ability to store information, that's the one thing I dislike about our current unit. It stores the information for the day but at the end of the day, it starts over. After that, it only stores the maximum value ever reached. It looked to me like the Ultimeter did not have build in recording, wasn't so sure about the Davis either. They are setup of using an external data acquisition system, integrated would be better.

Running off of internal batteries is nice too, if one were trying to use a computer for data logging, a power outage could mess everything up.

Jon

Hi Louis,
I have both the Peet Ultimeter and the Vantage Pro 2. The Ultimeter has served me at home for more than 15 years with no issues. I added the Vantage Pro to my Sierra Chaparral Observatory more than a year ago and it has operated flawlessly. See hbastro.com observatory page for weather, and other data that is updated every 10 minutes..

Of the 2 I think I like the Vantage Pro better.

Hope this helps.
Best regards,
Dave