I had to move the Anemometer because it was going to be in the way for some upcoming home repairs, so I moved it onto its own pole and raised it up a few feet. It now is measuring wind speeds at 20 feet above ground level and 9 feet above the closest high point. (before it was 16 feet). Hopefully this will provide better wind speed measurements. The new pole seems to be a bit sturdier, but time will tell. If there is too much vibration at high wind speeds I'll have to drop it a few feet.
This was the first time I've had it down since it was put into operation back in Feb. 2005, so I took it apart and verify things are still in good shape and changed the lithium batteries so it is ready for another winter. The unit is in fair condition, the bearings have a little bit of friction (showing a bit of wear), and so a replacement will probably be needed in a year or two. Pretty much on schedule to what I've heard from other users.
It was a perfect early evening for the change as we had no wind. Had the system taken down and starting piecing the new pole together and then stopped for supper. After supper the wind picked up to a light breeze, so I lost 2 hours of wind data. As the unit was put back into operation, we were starting to get gusts in the mid 20km/h and a light drizzle. Storm from the north coming through tonight. (calling for winds up to 40km/h).
I also placed the sun temperature sensor on this new pole and it is about 13 feet above ground and facing directly south.
Also have a new higher quality web camera coming. Currently testing it and working on better location.
Happy weather watching...JZ

Replaced backup batteries with new Lithium batteries (good for the winter cold season) in anemometer and outside temperature/humidity sensor. Rather do that now when it is nice than to have to replace a battery in -20C with a wind chill!

The sun temperature sensor is normally a temperature only sensor on top of the pole, but FreeWX-Wi has problems with this sensor when the temperature dips below 0 Celsius. So for the winter I changed it to a temperature & humidity and placed it on the pole. This sensor doesn't catch as much sun light in the morning and evenings in the summer months.

Well, we'll see how long the station remains stable. I disabled Weather Underground about a year ago due to freeze up with the FreeWX-Wi software. Today I was viewing a fellow's weather web site and noticed a new feature from Weather Underground, the WebCam images. This new feature will store history images each day and place them into a nice calender view and as well, create a time lapse video for each day - WOW! This was something I was going to develop, but never had the time. So, check it out. From the weather site, click [Sky CAM] and then click the link below the web cam images. or click here http://www.wunderground.com/webcams/OldsAB/1/show.html.

I also re-enabled the weather data uploads, so the graphs and other data will start recording again. Since disabling Weather Underground, I've developed an application to watch FreeWX-Wi for failure and to fix it if the system freezes. So we'll see if that does the trick and how often it has to fix it.

The weather data is located here:
http://www.wunderground.com/weatherstat ... IALBERTA44

A hailstorm blew in just after 7pm on July 13 and at about 7:20pm we lost power. At 7:45 or so I lost power to the Internet and network switches, about 5 minutes later the web server battery ran out. The weather station laptop stayed online. Just over an hour after the power went out, it was restored. The software running the weather station then had some issues reconnecting back to the network, so a reboot of the weather laptop was required. By 9pm all systems where running properly.
Looks like I'll need to get a bigger battery UPS to keep the web server up longer. I was surprised that the Internet and switches went down first as the battery backup is the same as the web server. The modem and switches must be drawing a lot of power!
A photo of the storm coming in can be viewed here:
Storm Photo
Cheers,
Jeff

The sun temperature sensor is normally a temperature only sensor on top of the pole, but FreeWX-Wi has problems with this sensor when the temperature dips below 0 Celsius. So for the winter I changed it to a temperature & humidity and placed it on the pole. This sensor doesn't catch as much sun light in the morning and evenings in the summer months.
Hope an update for FreeWX-Wi will come out and fix this, but there hasn't been one yet.

Finally got around to upgrading the main computer that the weather station runs on.
The 9 year old Toshiba Satellite laptop was upgraded to a 6 year old Sony Vaio. Oh the horsepower now! Not that the system needed it, but the whine of the hard drive was getting to be annoying. The Toshiba was up and running 24/7 since March 2005 - that is impressive! Just need to find an old 4GB 2.5" hard drive to replace the whiny one and the Toshiba will be ready for service. They don't make them like they use to. (Boy I sound old now.) The new Sony is now a year newer than the main web server which is 7 years old. Cheap stuff can still be useful!
Cheers - JZ