I guess the first question that I should answer is, "Why would I go through such trouble just to get the temperature?". It really takes a love for the weather to do this. My fascination of weather proably got it's start when I was a kid.......seeing the twister on the Wizard of Oz. However, it's only been in the last few years that I began to actively watch the weather patterns and to have deep respect for the power that it wields.

  This year marks the fifth anniversary of this site. I've wanted to get a weather station for the past few years, but could never force myself to get one. This year, I couldn't fight it any longer. I really wanted to be able to track the local weather and place the stats on this site.

  As of March 12, 2008, I have had the station operating for a little less than a week. At this point it is all working quite well. I have the system uploading stats to this website and have registered it with the Weather Underground. The only part that really hasn't been tested is the precipitation measurement. It hasn't rained since the system was installed, but that is supposed to change over the next couple of days.

  The only downside that I see to the system is the cost. The initial cost of the system is rather high, but it seems that no matter what accessory that I want to get is about $150. For truly accurate meteorological measurements, the anemometer should be 30' off the ground. Currently, my system is only at 6'. With the installation that I have, it really isn't feasible to put it that high. To place it correctly, I need to purchase another wireless transmitter so that I can mount it away from the main system. Yep, you guessed it.....about $150. My other gripe is with the firmware of the system. I feel that you should be able to update the firmware on any piece of hardware for free. On this station, you can't do it for free. To upgrade the firmware requires the purchase of an additional piece of hardware.....yep.....about $150. Now, it is mentioned that you can 'rent' the hardware to upgrade the firmware for a reduced cost, but I haven't checked into that to get an exact cost.

  Overall, this seems to be a high quality system that I am very impressed with.