Sundown and instrumentation…
Posted on February 5, 2007
Filed Under All, Photos, Technology, Dotcom Garden |
The sun may not have been actually setting when I snapped this pic, but it was certainly headed in that direction this evening. Yesterday I set up this part of our new Oregon Scientific weather station, and it’s working like a charm. It uses 433 MHz (interesting) to update a base unit once every 60 seconds with temperature, humidity, wind speed and direction. The unit is battery powered, and even tells the base when it’s time to change the double-As. Set up and discovery went flawlessly.
Not quite the case for the rain sensor, however, which I still haven’t been able to get to connect. We’ve tried the usual tricks - different batteries, resets et al.: next stop will be Oregon Scientific support, I guess. We also will be setting up the base station’s USB connection and Windows software, running as a Parrallels process on our Intel Mini.
My goal is to start watching temperatures in the garden as we move into cool-season planting time, and maybe gin up a new web page for the garden with the telemetry and maybe the return of garden cam (and ‘virtual serenity‘). We’re beginning to think about snow peas, chard and lettuce in March, and herbs like Cilantro. I am so looking foward to a garden this year….
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3 Responses to “Sundown and instrumentation…”
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I will be interested to read about the OS weather station. I use a remote data logger for simple Temp and Humidity data for my homebuilt wine cellar, but have not yet graduated to the wireless updating. It simply logs to a memory card every 5 minutes, and so every 4-6 months, I bring it in the house and download the diurnal variation in T&H for the lowest rack in my cellar. No surprises there, subterranean rooms can do quite well in a Califormia climate.
Paul
Gardening…. I love it. I have had a garden every year since I was 16 years old back in Fargo. This year there are lots of rabbits, but no honey bees. I have been pollinating with a paintbrush and my fingers…
I have concluded that the bees are dissappearing because they cannot find their hives. Their inner radar is being affected by the cell phone towers, gps and various other signals. Just like military sonar causes hundreds of dolphins to beach themselves. It’s really sad. Technology is destroying our planet.
At least the sound of my violin still comforts me…
[…] No sooner than my poor Digilux II came home but I dragged it out in this morning’s rain to try and snap some ‘weather‘ pix. My Oregon Scientific weather station has a failed rain sensor and its control station won’t talk to the USB port on the Mac Mini. Time to get it back in shape for the upcoming wet season… […]