I bought a replacement weather station quite soon after we decided to stay on the island, but it has been unusable for the most part. The biggest problem was the mounting, and I have been continuosly searching for an appropraie mounting pole (Spain used an old curtain pole mounted on the top balcony), but with little success.
When sil Anne was here, she spotted some poles in the hardware warehouse, which I intended to use. I picked one up and went to the cashdesk, holding it like a knight at a joust. "You´ll not be so happy when you hear the price" said the grumpy cashier. It was just a pole very similar to the white painted stuff everyone uses in spain as a curtain rail, so I couldn´t realy see it being more than a tenner - but if he wanted to upset me, maybe 20. That would be £48 quid he said. What the...? I replied. Thought I´d tell you as it is expensive.
So expensive I rode my hobby-horse back to the originationg slot and put it back.
What about a similar square piece? I inquired. 2x2 would be about 3 quid said the man. Having picked up the piece, I told the counter man I would round it off and come back and sell it to him for 30 quid.
So, eventually I went home with a two and a half meter long square pole, wondering how I could manufacture a mounting.
Anyway, with a bit of judicious sawing and hacking, I rounded off the last two inches and managed to make the system fit - and there it stood in the garage, broadcasting to the world that the Isle of Man had zero wind and that the outside temperature was about 10º warmer than the reality!
This morning I went out and fastened the pole to the shed and clipped on the wind speed and direction indicators, so at least it now reflects reality.
The "Bart Simpson" effect is a load of wire ties fastened around the rain collection bowl to try to stop birds landing on it and treating it as a toilet!
It amuses me and will be interesting to see just how strong the winds are (although it might have been more effective it had been sited 5m higher and well away from the house and shed). It runs to an app named "Ecowitt "which displays data from systems all over the world. I think there are about ten on the island, so only a small community here (but pal Mark helped his neighbour to install one - said neighbour also being an ex-Shelly, so it seems we are all strange in a similar way!)
If the wind gets really strong I will know now - but probably as it will knock the whole shed over.
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