Weather station

[Ed Pawlowski]

I bought an indoor/outdoor weather station. The brand is Accurite. It is a nifty setup that has outdoor remote sensors for temperature, humidity, wind speed, wind direction, gives indoor temperature, barometric pressure and a lot more. The problems, though, is the temperature readings. They are 4 degrees low. IMO, that makes me suspect of everything else it reads and is really about useless when it comes to a freeze warning.

I'm probably going to return it, but I'm wondering if anyone had good experience with another brand in the less than $150 range?

[hrhofmann]

What was the reference you compared it to??

[Tony Hwang]

Hi, If it is always 4 deg. low, then add 4 deg. to the reading. Or there may be a procedure for calibration in the manual.

[Red Green]

"Ed Pawlowski" wrote in news:WcydnSQ46rAKF9zXnZ2dnUVZ [e-mail]:

That's a good question Ed. It doesn't take much of a distance in areas for differences. Possibly you have something much more accurate that you know is in calibration?

But if it's always 4 degrees and always low, I understand your suspicions and would probably come to the same conclusion.

[Ed Pawlowski]

I compared it to three other thermometers that all read the same. One was calibrated with ice water at 32 degrees. In addition, the indoor reading was 67 while the actual was 71. At 67, my wife would have been under a blanket.

For close to $100, I don't want to have to make mental changes every glance at the temperature, plus it will be off with relative humidity and wind chill calculation that it also reads. The place the readings were taken is within inches of each other.

[Red Green]

"Ed Pawlowski" wrote in news:UdSdncKtnMvLBtzXnZ2dnUVZ [e-mail]:

Not looking good for the Accurite.

Yep, the Accurite sounds acutely inaccurate.

In the bag/dun deal test and cal from NOAA/NWS:

[Ed Pawlowski]

That should work most of the year but the crickets tend to be quit at 5 below.

I did some searching and found a Zephyr Instrument model that is supposed to be accurate to 0.5 degrees. That is a more sensible tolerance.

[Phisherman]

Wow, 4 degrees off. I'd return it. I still use a broken aquarium alcohol thermometer corked in a test tube and mounted where I can see it from an indoor window. For more data than that I use the Internet which gives me forcasts and satellite weather maps, better than anything you can buy.

[Phisherman]

Another idea. Make a water/slush mix in a clean container. It will be an accurate 32 degrees F. The $150 is a bit much, isn't it?

[HeyBub]

Most alcohol or mercury thermometers are calibrated at 72° and are marked with an itty-bitty scratch on the column at that location. Once you make sure your manual thermometer is set correctly, you can compare it with the new device with confidence.

If, as a result of your comparison, your new device is still inaccurate, call the company that made it. I'm sure they would rather make it right than have their name mentioned here.

[ransley]

Is that a HD or menardys unit, try another one, Oregon Scientific is ok, but maybe one big shop in china makes all of them, im sure you will find one thats not defective so mail order isnt best. I bought some radio shack thermometers for accurate remote monitoring and they were actualy about 99.9-100% that I verified with a calibrated mercury, Menards remotes were 2-4 f off on a batch I tried. I think Its just luck, getting a good batch.

[Stormin Mormon]

My only weather station of sorts is my indoor outdoor thermometer from Walmart, about fifteen bucks. Runs on AAA cells.

When I was in school, we used to calibrate thermometers with ice water bath, stirred not shaken. That gave us a dependable 32F or 0C temperature.

My thermometer in the Blazer reads dependably two degrees high. If the gage reads 78F, the weather report on the radio is 76. I don't know of any calibration for my Blazer. Maybe your weather station has a tweak some where for fine tuning.

[Bill]

This is my experience with just about anything I buy these days. It does not work as it should. You need to fix it, modify it, or adjust it to get it to work as it should.

Quality control has gone out the window!

[Nancy Young]

I have a LaCross Technology weather station. The temperature is spot on as compared to my old fashioned Vermont thermometer. However, I never did find a good place to put the wind thing (technical term) so I just took it down.

Costco has an OSI weather station that looks good, too, and it's $140. Costco.com search on weather station.

nancy

[Jon Danniken]

A practical solution is to use a human body temperature thermometer for calibration. While they have a very small range (~96F - 104F) of resolution, you can count on them to be accurate.

It would also be interesting to use a non-contact thermometer and hit the signal off of the sensor element of the weather station.

Jon

[RicodJour]

Where are you that the radio station keeps their thermometer in your car? Did you give them permission to install it, or did it come that way from the factory?

R

[Edwin Pawlowski]

I called and they told me the spec is +/- 2 degrees. At that much of a differential, I'd not have bought it. At this point I think I'm going to return it and buy another brand with more accuracy.

[Oren]

Contact Government Motors :-))

My Ford temp gauge is off by 2 degrees, but at 110 - 117 degrees it really don't matter!

[Pete C.]

Those are unfortunately low grade, non calibrated (or even calibratable) mass market units. If you want accurate weather instrumentation, you have to look at the Davis Instruments stuff, and yes, it does cost more than $150 for a quality complete setup.

[George]

Sadly a lot of stuff seems to have really Mickey Mouse specs.

Davis instruments makes nice stuff but are a little more spendy:

Oregon scientific also makes good stuff: