Silver Creek Weather Observatory Station Setup
Silver Creek Observatory
Morganton, North Carolina, USA     N 35.71    W 81.75    1109' MSL
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 Weather:   Station Setup

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SCO Weather Station Setup

The weather data displayed on this site is being collected by a Wireless Davis Instruments Vantage Pro Integrated Sensor Suite (ISS) with a Standard Radiation Shield. The ISS  is mounted 10 feet above the peak of the roof of my 3 car garage using a Mounting Tripod. That places the instruments 32 feet Above Ground Level (AGL) or 1141 feet above Mean Sea Level (MSL). Even at this height nearby trees block some of the wind flow, especially when it is blowing from the North and the East.


 


The station transmits it's information to a Davis Solar Powered Wireless Repeater that is mounted to the south facing side of the chimney atop my house. From here the data is retransmitted to a Davis Wireless Vantage Pro console/receiver located in our kitchen (to allow easy viewing of current conditions) and a Davis Wireless Weather Envoy in our laundry room in the basement. The Davis Wireless Weather Envoy collects and stores the weather data. Then along with a Davis WeatherLink data logger the information is transferred to a HP Pavilion 8660c desktop PC. This allows the data to be stored and utilized by Davis WeatherLink  and Ambient's Virtual Weather Station software for display and uploading the information to the Internet.

 

Weather Camera Setup

The weather cameras used are the Radio Shack Indoor/Outdoor Color Surveillance Camera. They are fairly inexpensive but give a reasonably good quality video image. Both are enclosed in a cases that I designed and built out of sheet metal and Plexiglas with one pointed skyward and the other toward the ground. This allows for both a view of the sky conditions (clouds, visibility, etc.) and ground conditions (wind, snow, etc.). The cameras are mounted on the north side of chimney atop my house, opposite the Davis Solar Powered Wireless Repeater. Galvanized plumbing pipe and fittings were used to mount the cameras to some old antenna supports attached to the chimney. Each camera is attached to a separate branch with unions to allow it to be adjusted in almost any direction, completely independent of the other camera. From here the 65 foot wires enters the house beside the chimney, then snake down through the interior spaces of the house. Once the wires reach their destinations they are attached to Hauppauge Impact VCB video capture cards  in their respective PC computers. Then using ImageSalsa software the video is uploaded to the SCO web site.

 

 

Disclaimer

Never make important decisions based on this information or any weather information obtained from the Internet

This page was last updated: 11/08/05