Weather Station Back Online

The weather station has been running for a while now at the new QTH. I finally got some reasonably fast internet access so I've put it back online. The real time data looks good as well as most everything else. A couple of folks asked about where it is located and what type of equipment I'm using.

It's a Davis Advantage Pro II. It's wireless with a rage of 1000' and Solar powered. The temperature and humidity sensors are enclosed in a solar-powered, 24-hour fan-aspirated radiation shield to lessen the radiation effects. The anemometer is mounted about 9' off the ground with the sensor package at about 5'.

The physical location should give a pretty accurate representation of what’s going on. The mounting is intended to let me know what I'm going to be hit with when I walk out the door. There are no obstructions for a good distance around it so it should be pretty accurate.

 

 

Tower Base Going in Soon...

With the weather we're having I've decided to push the tower base
install up a few weeks. Looking at the 10 day forecast the days will be
in the forty's and fifty's with night's above freezing or just below.
But it's Kansas so everything is subject to change. Went out this
morning and took a few pictures of the tower location and the surrounding
area. I plan on documenting the process as well as I can. Should be fun
as well as a good record if anything goes wrong. I am amazed at how
expensive concrete is. I'll post pics here as we go along if anyone is
interested. 73.

Looking from the south the tower will go near the middle

From tower location looking north

From tower location looking south

Looking southwest land drops to the creek

 

Back on the air...sort of

Got a Dipole up at the new place and a radio connected but that's about it. It's a lot quieter here in the country and I'm really looking forward to getting the tower back up. Hopefully it will be going up in the early spring before the rains start. I never realized how many cables and connections I had made over the years. Starting with an empty room is a real challenge. So far just getting the first coax line into the shack has been a lot of work. I didn't want to run it in the window so it took more effort to run it into the house and get it into the shack but I think it will be worth it in the end.The only problem with a finished basement is trying to run cables with all the walls and ceiling finished, what a pain!!

I've mounted Panduit around the wall and am bringing the cable into the closet. That will be the equipment closet now. I'm planning on putting the power supplies in there also and control them with a switch on the wall. The computers will eventually go in there also that should get some of the noise and extra heat out of the room.

ST0R Southern Sudan

ST0R from the newest country finally made it onto the General portion of 20 meters. I was beginning to think they were going to miss us. I came downstairs tonight and they were on 14.145/14.245. Not very loud here in Kansas but loud enough. I was afraid the band would drop out while I was waiting for the amp to warm up so I gave him a call with 100 watts he came back to me on the second call and he was in the log about the time the amp finished it's warm-up.
Their website seems to be down tonight for maintenance hopefully they are uploading logs. 73.

The bands are improving

The sunspot numbers are increasing and so is the DX. I've been hearing more DX lately and with the CQWW WPX contest coming next weekend it may prove to be one of the best we've had in years!

I worked I2VRN in Italy Thursday morning at 03:20Z on 40 meters. He was 5-8 here in Wichita and he gave me a 5-7. Huge pileup, lots of very loud stations especially from the East.

You don't have to be a big time contester to have some fun in these events. The international contests are a great way to add some new countries to your log, so get on and see what's available. These are stations that usually have a pretty good antenna system and can hear really well. So it doesn't take a mega station to work them. The first night and part of the next day can be pretty busy but after that the pileups get smaller and they are begging for contacts. Give them a shout and add a new country to your log.

Weather system is back up !!

Managed to rebuild the Boot Record and got the drive back up and running !!
Updates should be back to normal except for the rain totals. Still working on that.

Later,

Weather Station Update Down

Weather Station Updates Down
I had a hard drive failure on the computer that takes care
of the weather station so there won't be any updates for a while
until I can get it replaced and set everything up.
Thanks,

Please wait

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