Weather Stations

Curious how many of you have wireless weather stations on your boat. Would like to install one on my boat, but most of the reviews for the lower cost units ($200-$400) are not very good. It seems that most of the good reviews are those that just purchased the units. The poor reviews are the ones that have had them for a year or two and have had them go bad.

Thanks
Jerry

Presume you're not speaking of the USCG weather channel broadcasts.

I would get a wired N2k one like the Maretron Wso-100 we just installed one and a couple other things and it's been great. No moving parts!

N4712 said:

I would get a wired N2k one like the Maretron Wso-100 we just installed one and a couple other things and it's been great. No moving parts!

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We've had great success with a similar wired system, the Airmar PB200. Ours is pushing 4 years old and works perfectly. Significantly more expensive than the $200 - 400 you quote though.

I purchased one a Home Depot one year ago. See attached photo. It has a ticker the scrolls the current day, current week and all time high and low temp and high wind (54 mph June 19). Cost about $80.00 no issues so far, knock on wood

Conrad said:

We've had great success with a similar wired system, the Airmar PB200. Ours is pushing 4 years old and works perfectly. Significantly more expensive than the $200 - 400 you quote though.

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Ours was $550. Yours has a bunch of extra stuff like GPS, rate accelerometer and a heading compass stuff you don't really need for a weather station.

Here's a capture of the weather page on my DSM-150 data is from WSO.

N4712 said:

Ours was $550. Yours has a bunch of extra stuff like GPS, rate accelerometer and a heading compass stuff you don't really need for a weather station.

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What? you don't need to know your pitch, roll, and rate of turn? Me neither.

But the true wind speed & direction, outside temp, and barometric are very useful. And it was what was available to us at the time.

I'm impressed with your display.

Conrad said:

What? you don't need to know your pitch, roll, and rate of turn? Me neither.



But the true wind speed & direction, outside temp, and barometric are very useful. And it was what was available to us at the time.



I'm impressed with your display.

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Not dissing yours, I have sensors for all that stuff already. Masthead is the most wrong place you can put a heading sensor, just because it's the tallest point and subject to exaggerated rolling and pitching, if you have another GPS on the network you can get the true wind.

Plus I'd rather buy a separate GPS so there isn't a single point of failure.

Conrad said:

What? you don't need to know your pitch, roll, and rate of turn? Me neither.



But the true wind speed & direction, outside temp, and barometric are very useful. And it was what was available to us at the time.



I'm impressed with your display.

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I am too. Has many other features.
Here's one of them.

You can make a graph for other things too like pitch, roll, true wind, barometric, and tons of other things. Great little device that packs a lot of features.

If you're talking about the La Crosse, Accu-Rite, and similar units they work really well on land, but last about a year on the water. The sensors just aren't built for marine exposure. Maybe longer if you're somewhere sunny and never go out in crappy weather.

I'm a bit bitter I spent time and money on them before I went the Airmar/Maretron route.

We had a LaCrosse unit that we paid about 90 bucks for at sam's club, Served us very well, really excellent customer service, they sell all the parts when out of warranty, so when I klutzed out and broke something, cheap-to-free to replace. Served us well for seven years.

I saw a posting somewhere about using consumer-grade weather stations on boats - they didn't last as long as marine-grade equivalents but even with replacing every 2 to 3 years the poster said they were well ahead. I thought it might have been James Hamilton on their older Dirona, but think I can find the posting again?......

I spotted this software that works with Oregon Scientific models. Thought it could be worth exploring.

Weather Station Data Logger

(This naturally would only provide apparent wind....)

I have used a system from Davis weather systems. Worked very well and accurate for me for many years on the boat in salt conditions. It ran about $400-500. You can get a wired or a wireless system.
Capt. Don


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Capt. Don

The reviews I was reading was for the Accu-Rite and Davis Systems. Need to review the units from LaCrosse. I don't always trust some of the reviews but they did go along with what a couple of you have stated. Good for a year or two and then fail. I'm mostly looking for wind direction, wind speed and outside temp. Rain fall amount and humidity would be nice but not necessary.

Thanks for all the input.

Capecodder said:

I purchased one a Home Depot one year ago. See attached photo. It has a ticker the scrolls the current day, current week and all time high and low temp and high wind (54 mph June 19). Cost about $80.00 no issues so far, knock on wood

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I have the same. I also had one that have me wind direction that stopped working after a year.
This Accurite I've had for three years.

I also have the Maretron wso, but only have the system running when underway.

I used lacross wireless system on my salt water dock for years. The only problem was obtuse set up every time batts died

I prefer a wired system if for no other reason than I don't want to climb the stack once a year or whatever to change the batteries.

I think a lot has to do with whether or not you have an N2K network, or are thinking about getting one started. Once the network is in place, it becomes the logical place to put things like a weather sensor. Data can be displayed on whatever displays you have on the network, including your chart plotter. And the displays can make use of other sensors like heading to give you ground wind direction and speed, or even just your GPS to give you ground wind speed. But that first step to build the base N2K network can be a stumbling block.

My wireless system was solar powered, no outside batteries.

bayview said:

My wireless system was solar powered, no outside batteries.

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What brand and model do you have. I read one review that stated the solar powered unit was fine during the day but would not charge the batteries enough to allow the unit to work through the night. Have you had that problem?

Thanks

jstauffer said:

What brand and model do you have. I read one review that stated the solar powered unit was fine during the day but would not charge the batteries enough to allow the unit to work through the night. Have you had that problem?

Thanks

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I have an Oregon weather station at my house. It's wireless with solar modules on each sensor. They lasted longer than with batteries alone, but still only a few years. The only sensor that is still operating is the one that is within easy reach where I have replaced the batteries. Success with solar will vary with your geographic region. Anywhere you get cloud cover for more than a few days at a time, you will end up replacing batteries. In New England we can get a month or two with no bright sunny days. In the PNW, whole seasons go by without enough bright sun to keep from replacing batteries. If you are in So Cal or somewhere sunny, results will likely be much better.

La cross. It always seemed to be charged. That would depend in boat direction I guess but on my dock pole it always worked.

N4712 said:

I am too. Has many other features.
Here's one of them.
View attachment 36767
You can make a graph for other things too like pitch, roll, true wind, barometric, and tons of other things. Great little device that packs a lot of features.

Click to expand...

I really like the graphing capability. Is that part of the unit, or part of the Maretron system?

I've got a AccuRite that must be 8 or 9 years old, only thing it's needed is batteries about once a year. Being freshwater probably helps and it's simple just temp and humidity in / out and pressure.

Conrad said:

I really like the graphing capability. Is that part of the unit, or part of the Maretron system?

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The maretron display, has nothing to do with the masthead sensor. Also you can make the graph for however many ours / days. It's pretty cool.

N4712 said:

The maretron display, has nothing to do with the masthead sensor. Also you can make the graph for however many ours / days. It's pretty cool.

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Thanks Oliver. Now I have graph envy.

Conrad said:

Thanks Oliver. Now I have graph envy.

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If you get a maretron display it should graph your weather data no problem. The displays I got were like 400 bucks a piece. I think they're a very good value.

I have an accurite that gives inside and out temp and humidity plus pressure history. I have a handheld Kestrel meter for windspeed and direction

N4712 said:

Ours was $550. Yours has a bunch of extra stuff like GPS, rate accelerometer and a heading compass stuff you don't really need for a weather station.

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But that is $550 for just the WSO-100 right? So you still need to buy a display which is another $400-$500?

Capt.Bill11 said:

But that is $550 for just the WSO-100 right? So you still need to buy a display which is another $400-$500?

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Yes assuming you have the N2k backbone, if you don't then that's another 50-60 bucks. It's pays off when you Goto add sensors to in the future and all you have to do is hook up a cable.