About Me

Equipment Used

This part of the website is devoted to people who have to know how things work.

First off... My high speed internet is provided by Comcast Cable (4 Mbps down, 356Kb up). It is coupled to an RCA cable modem and a Linksys WRV54G wireless VPN router. My network is an extended star topology, and the backbone consists of Cat5e cable running at 100Mbps. Below you will see my makeshift wiring closet. The computer below the printer is the one running this site (dogriverweather.net). It is an HP Pavilion 3266 running at a screaming pace of 233mhz, running Windows 2000 Advanced Server. It is my primary Domain Controller. All of this fancy equipment is protected by an APC 350 backups and APC cable line surge protector.

Moving on... When you click the link for LIVE weather (using Weatherflash) the request is forwarded to my IBM Netfinity 5000 running Windows 2003 Server Enterprise Edition. The server has dual 550mhz PIII processors with 384Mb of RAM. This server is connected directly to the Vantage Pro console via a serial port. I use Ambient Virtual Weather Station Internet edition to bring the weather to you the user. This server is also my file server and backup Domain Controller. This server also has a video capture card installed so it brings you the webcam images you see via a 1 watt wireless video transmitter. It is protected by an APC Smart-Ups 700 with auto shutdown.

OK...that's enough with the computer side. Lets talk about the weather station. I currently use a Davis Vantage Pro Plus (with UV and solar sensors) to bring you the weather. I recommend it over the Oregon Scientific hands DOWN!!! (Email me from more info if needed) I located the Integrated Sensor Suite (ISS) on a 4x4 pole using 1", thick wall, PVC pipe (495 PSI). The PVC pipe withstood the winds of Hurricane Ivan back in September of 2004, and it only cost me $2.00 at Lowes versus paying Davis $40.00 for a mounting pole. I relocated the anemometer (wind thingy) on a light pole to help minimize the obstructs (it has one obstruction to the NW). I used the four conductor wire from Davis with waterproof connectors to extend the anemometer another 40ft. Maybe you have noticed that the ISS is suspended high in the air (16ft to be exact) this was do to the terrain problems. The ground slopes as it gets closer to the river (from 33ft above sea level to 2ft). The extra height allows the ISS to transmit the signals to the wireless repeater.

I had to buy a wireless repeater due to the fact the range from the house to the river exceeded 400ft plus the terrain problem did not help either. So that meant I had to buy more equipment. I mounted the repeater in a pine tree (engineering at its best) 24ft off the ground so the line of sight could be achieved between the ISS and repeater. I chose the Solar wireless repeater for obvious reasons, the pine tree had no power outlet. I also learned that Davis provides you with a power connector on the circuit board, so you can use it either as a AC or solar powered repeater (Note the use of the PVC pipe again). I used electrical conduit straps and a piece of pressure treated decking board to hold it firmly to the tree. The photographs for this website were taken with a Sony Mavica FD200 digital camera. The picture in the photo gallery were taken with my HP Photo-smart 618xi digital camera.

I hope this walk through and suggestions on how dogriverweather.net gets to your computer was helpful and maybe I gave you some ideas about mounting your weather station. I welcome ALL of your comments, suggestions and questions. Please click on the FEEDBACK button below. (None of the fields are required on the feedback page. Therefore if you don't want to give your name and/or email address that is fine.)

This site was last updated 02/01/05