Sunday, February 19, 2017

Big Light In Sky Scares Local Residents.....

Well, maybe not, but it sure is good to see the Sun after so many days of overcast skies and rain.

We have a 60% chance of rain tonight and tomorrow, but they're predicted to be light showers, nothing like the last deluge we had.

And something went wonky in my weather station. The anemometer had stopped working during the last rain, and now the yearly rainfall total is showing something like 185", more than ten times what we've actually received.

We had some major electrical disturbances during the rain, large green fireballs and BUZZZZ-ZAP! coming from a powerline one street over, and several power drop-outs lasting four to five minutes. This has never been a problem before, as the weather station, living room scanner, and my Drake TR-270 Ham Radio VHF/UHF transceiver all operate from a 1500VA APC UPS, and it's a brute of a UPS. It's one of the larger "Smart-UPS Pure Sinewave" units that weighs about 5 times as much as the "Back-Ups" ones commonly available at places like Best Buy.

The scanner and Drake are operating normally, so I'm guessing I either have some water intrusion into connecting cable, or something has gone South in either the remote head, or the control console hanging on the wall inside. I'll pull the "C" cell back up batteries out later, and unplug the wall wart to see if it resets. Otherwise I'll have to get the ladder out and get up there to see if the cable connections got wet and/or corroded. It's been up there since October of 2009, and I bought it new in 2005, so it might just be ready for replacement.

This model is no longer available, but it looks like they have a newer version of the cabled units. I really don't want to go wireless, as that means changing out a battery in the remote head every once in a while, something I'd rather not do!

3 comments:

  1. I'd bet on water intrusion... And 8 years isn't bad!

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  2. 8 years here, and another 5 back at my apartment!

    I originally bought this and set up a server so I could check on the weather back home when I was out on a launch campaign.

    Replaced the back-up batteries, and did a "clear all", but it's still a little wonky. I'll get the ladder out and go aloft if it's nice out tomorrow.

    ReplyDelete
  3. When we have bad weather coming in, I have to go around and throw the breaker on the bump, turn off the satellite receiver, turn off the satellite radio, and unplug the phones. We have some God awful thunder and lightning here. I have all my radios on good power strips, but I unplug them and the computer equipment from the wall anyway.

    Better safe than sorry.

    ReplyDelete

Keep it civil, please....

Annnnd.....We Got Zip.....

 Total snow was about 6~8", but half o0f it melted as soon as it hit, and we never had more than 3" on the ground at any one time....