To start wind speed measurements i went and bought WS2350 weatherstation. This is one of the latest models for european market. Most important change is that it has cup anemometer so wind direction does not
affect speed measurements and also there is com port to USB converter included so when latest computers dont have co port anymore then you can plug it to USB port. One of the best list of all features is in
Aces electronics website. Weatherstation costed 168EUR+5EUR delivery. When i ordered this from reseller Ronex webshop i was promised next day delivery and when 4 days was passed i started investigating, what happened was that they "forgot" to post the package.
Setting up weatherstation was very easy, everything is plug and play. Total 5 AA batteries was needed to power everything and alkaline batteries should last up to one year. Main unit needs 3 batteries and has also power adapter. I mounted main unit onto the wall with screws just next to "serverroom". I drilled 2x12mm holes hext to eachother and passed data- and powercables through it so they are invisible when watching main units display. As unit has atom clock then right after powering up it discovered on its own correct date and time. Outer unit have 3 cable connectionholes, for rainsensor, for windsensor and for cable connection. When batteries were inserted and after pressing + button for 2s everything was ready to go, wireless link was up and running.
I live on first floor in 3 story house and when receiver is located near east side of house and transmitter in west side then there is no reception as too many concrete walls diagonally weaken signal too much. Placing transmitter directly overhead gave me proper reception.
Most important feature for me of this weatherstation is PC connection. Heavy Weather software enables real time display of weather conditions, creating some graphs and generating image to be published on web. Everything is very simple and my grandma could do this. Unfortunately this simplicity makes software not flexible and permits advanced analysis of it. I asked from La Crosse France to share technical data eg how to read their history file with my own program and i received back random email template that pleace go to www.heavyweather.info and you find excellent programs. I exlained again that their programs suck for demanding users but they replyed how pity they are but they will not give out any useful information. But nothing to worry about, i have enough technical knowledge and i will break their protocols, build my own application and publish this here if i just find enough free time.
Wind direction on top of my appartment is quite uniform, except east winds are bit rare. This can be explained by anemometer being loccated in eastside of rectangular building and if winds blows from east then it hits wall and tends to rise higher, thus blowing over the sensor.
What interest me most is winspeed. Most small wind generators start to spin with windspeeds around 2-3 m/s and give reasonable output with 5-6m/s. As measurements show average windspeed for me is 2,82m/s which is unfortunately too low for big investment into wind generator.
