Weather Site now working

Have today reactivated my weather website. This site gives you all the live data my weather station gives out. It also gives you access to weather trends data and historical data.
It can be found here Midsomer Norton Weather

Weather Station Update

For those that might be interested, or use my weather data I have finally updated the location code. The new station ID is  INORTONR2. This means the station now appears when searching for Midsomer Norton and not showing as part of Bath.

Weather Station

I have been ask by a few people where the weather data that appears on my Facebook time line comes from.
The  data comes from a W-8681 weather station located on a pole at the end of the garden. It has a solar panel to keep the batteries charge which saves getting it down if they go flat.                           The following list shows the main features of the unit.

• Atomic Locked Day, Date & Time
• Indoor / Outdoor Temperature °F / °C + Max / Min
• Wind Speed & Direction
• Rain Gauge (Self-Emptying)
• Barometer with Trend date
• Weather Forecaster
• Historic Data Storage & Display
• Indoor Air Pressure & History
• Frequency 868MHz  (from the remote sensors)  
    
  This data is processed by Cumulus weather software which can be viewed on the laptop. The data is also sent to Weather Underground,,The Met Office and APRS/CWOP.
  
  
  The system is pretty reliable and gives an accurate report on the weather conditions at my location.
  
   

Weather site

I have now fixed the problem with my weather site. It is now providing clear and up to date data. You can find it at http://www.qsl.net/g4kvi/index.htm. One day I will try and make it look a little better but web design is not my best subject so I will leave it like it is for the time being.

Weather station changes

Have made some changes to the weather station here. The sensors were mounted on a fencepost, but with the recent hot weather it appears the wall beneath was acting as a radiator and giving some error on the temperature. Also it was shielded from most of the wind. So, I have moved it to the other side of the garden on the wooden fence and more in the clear, which should give more accurate readings.

Weather Website make over

Coming to the end of a rather successful weeks holiday. Lot of 'odd jobs' done and hopefully tomorrow the bike will have a new MOT. Have had one hiccup. That is that my old enemy, anxiety suddenly made it's self known. No idea where it came from but hopefully some appropriate prayer will send it on it's way. Another little 'gift' that my illness left behind. Anyway on to happy things and after looking at many weather site and getting rather jealous, I finally got round to sorting mine. It is rather basic at present but certainty looking much better. There a few little things that need sorting and eventually I want to expand it and make it look more professional, but for the time being it looks good. You can find by clicking the My Weather data link.

Twitter to Facebook problems

I have for a while sent my Weather data to Twitter which then is sent to Facebook. I have recently figured out how to improve that data including solar radiation and length of day calculations. However since then the data will not show on Facebook. If you want a twice daily snapshot of local conditions you can view them
at https://twitter.com/chrisandfiona.

System restored

Slight problem last week in that the hard drive on the Dell Latitude 620 that runs the weather and radio software, failed. I think this is only the second hard drive I have had fail.I took the opportunity to upgrade from the 80G that was fitted to a 320G. I did look at 500 and 1TB ones but on reading the reviews and talking to people it appears they have two platters and therefore are slightly less reliable and plus the fact 320G is far big enough for me. Replacing the hard drive was VERY easy taking about 5 mins (3 screws) However, I now had the task of reloading the software. Fortunately the Dell came with a complete version of WinXP SP2 so that saved a lot of problems. Loading this took about 3 hours. I then had a major problem getting the internal Wi-Fi to work.I had a Wi-Fi dongle which I used to get Internet access and after a lot of reading turns out that SP2 is not compatible with WPA2 which my router was set to. Setting it back to WPA solved the problem temporarily and enabled me to upgrade to SP3. The Wi-Fi then burst into life! I then had to load all the radio and weather software back on such as Cumulus, Uiview. This was easy but took some time to get the settings back fortunately I had taken screen shots which made things a little easier. I am still getting updates from both Dell and Microsoft but as the last one had 151 items hopefully things will slow down. Most things should be back working such as the weather data and Uiview, just a couple of location issues which are causing some problems. However, I am very pleased with my efforts, although I don't think I will be applying for any IT jobs!

Storms

We have been lucky here with the storm down mainly to our low elevation. However, on my dog walking today the results of the storm was evident, with fences down and the occasional roof tile missing. I have spoken to friends at higher elevation and people in Bath and the situation in places has been and is very serious. The tweet below shows just how deep the depression that produced the storm was.

RT @bbcweather: Stornoway reported a barometric pressure of 936.4mb at 1230pm today. Lowest recorded anywhere in the UK since December 1886.
— Met Office Storms (@metofficestorms) December 24, 2013

Weather Station update

The weather station suffered a total loss of it's external sensors last week when the mountings holding it on the fence broke. I fortunately I  had some spares and it is now back on line again. Where we are located is fairly low down and that is reflected in the current wind speed records. I have also been struggling with data loss between the laptop and the base unit. I have now traced that to a fault in the USB extension lead. There is still the problem with signal loss with the outside transmitter. This seems to be a combination of interference, low battery level and distance between the base and external transmitter. With the current storm still battery us I hope the new fixings will be man enough to ensure the station is still active in the morning.

Weather Station Update

Had the weather station running for a while and everything seems to be working OK.  One thing I have now done is to find a hosting company which means you can now view my station live. You can also view statistics over the last year.

The site can be found at http://www.qsl.net/g4kvi/

Weather Station

Thanks to my birthday I now have my weather station back up and working.
I have a Nevada WH-3080 Solar this is an upgrade on my previous station. I have located the station on my fence in the garden. This is a fairly low location but clear from most directions, it also means I can check it regular to prevent another 'spider invasion'.
As before there are a number of ways you can view the data.

On this blog the data is at the bottom.

On Weather Underground.

On PWS

I also transmit data on APRS

I transmit data most of the time, however there is a break during the night when I switch the router off.

Back from New Wine

Just back a from New Wine. Bit of a strange week this year. I have not really been able to get in to it as much as I usually do. I think this is the fact I only did one week and have the week at the Olympics still to come. However, I still enjoyed it and met some great people with fantastic testimonies. We had the usual jobs to do, patrol, venues gates etc. The usual lost children and found parents to deal with. We also had some very heavy ran which left a lot of tents under water. We did our best to direct the water away from tents but given the volume and speed of the rain in many cases it was a lost cause and the only thing to do was remove the tents in the waters path. It is a times like these that the true Christian spirit really shows through with offers of tents and bedding from around the camp-site. We also had a visit from the Dorset and Somerset Air Ambulance. This required most stewards being deployed around the show ring to enable it to land without any campers wandering into it's path. The crew then had what seem an exciting trip on a buggy to the patient. So now to look forward to this week and my Olympic duties down in Weymouth.

Day at New Wine

If you live in the UK you will be aware the effects the weather has had on many outdoor events. New Wine did not escape this. The ground became water logged (which it often has during previous events) however, the amount and duration of the rain gave the ground no chance to drain and dry out. So, it required a lot of hard work by the set-up crew, a break in the weather with two days of sun, a lot of prayer and the decision to delay the start by 24 hours to ensure New Wine 2012 is now under way. This meant I could spend the day on site, and see Fiona. I spent most of the day on Brown Gate ensuring delegates got on to the site with a minimum of delay. I think we managed it without to many problems and hope those on site get what they want from the teaching's, worship and fellowship.I am now back at work this week. I may pop down Thursday but will see how the week goes.

Storm Cam

With the weather people predicting the extreme weather  tonight and tomorrow I thought it was a good time to try out the web cam. You can see it here http://90.220.85.65:8888/
The camera is looking towards the Midsomer Norton railway which is on the hill.

Winter driving survival kit

An interesting short video on what to have in your car in winter.                      



                             

Winter driving tips

Another video, this time on driving in winter conditions


              

Weather Station and Webcam

The new weather station is performing exceptionally well, producing constant reliable data. The only problem I have is with the web cam. Because I do not have a static IP address if the router goes off or reboots the web cam address changes. I have therefore removed the link from this blog. If you wish to see the web cam please use the link from  http://www.midsomernorton.bravehost.com/gauges.htm