[Live_Steam_Mad]

Right, well I've bought one of the Ebay Solar Panels as in that link I gave above, and I'll look forwards to doing the solar tests at some point in the future.

Last night I painted my FO radiation shield a pretty bright white since I didn't like the beige plastic absorbing sunlight and distorting the air temperature readings as much as it does, and whilst I was at it I also swapped over my wind cups (anemometer) for the darker ones that I just bought from Maplin in St.Helens (meant for the N96GY black version of the weather station, where I have the silver / black version N96FY), reason being my original wind cups made IMHO a quite noticeable (if not actually loud) irritating ticking sound from the magnetically triggered reed switch inside. The local St.Helens store has 5 of the darker colored ones in stock and I also bought one of the NF25R ones as well (also identical design, but much whiter plastic), they have one in stock, and I also have wind cups for my N96FY on order so I can have a spare.

The loudest ticking noise came from my original anemometer from my N96FY weather station (WH-1081), the medium loud ticking noise came from the one for the NF25R, and by far the quietest ticking sound came from the N96GY version made from the much darker grey plastic, so I installed the latter one as a quieter replacement for my original one.

I have very sensitive hearing and I could hear the ticking noise 20 feet away across the patio as I was observing last week with my C11 telescope. I also imagined that on a quiet warm night the ticking noise might not impress my neighbour through an open window. I have already been told off once by my neighbour on the other side for having my CG-5 telescope mount on it's fastest slew setting (a bit of a loud noise at night!) and had to turn it down to make it move slower and thus quieter. Don't want to annoy my neighbours.

Here are the links for the replacement parts from Maplin ;-

http://www.maplin.co.uk/p/maplin-replace...25fr-n76nf

http://www.maplin.co.uk/p/maplin-replace...96gy-n09qr

http://www.maplin.co.uk/p/maplin-replace...96gy-n81nf

http://www.maplin.co.uk/p/maplin-replace...96gy-n77nf

http://www.maplin.co.uk/p/maplin-replace...96gy-n78nf

http://www.maplin.co.uk/p/maplin-replace...96fy-n82nf

http://www.maplin.co.uk/p/maplin-replace...96gy-n80nf

...that last one is only if you have the compatible weather station. WDPro2 uses it's own sensors for temp. and humidity and transmitter, which replaces that last Maplin item.

I also noticed whilst I was in the shop that they had sold out of the new 200 GBP weather station with it's all-in-one suite of weather instruments and the color screen, otherwise known as the FO model HP1000 I believe, so it looks like someone in St.Helens or nearby area recently bought one. I notice that Maplin never sold the 3080, the 3080's bad reputation must have preceeded it...

My weather station setup outside can be seen here ;-

http://www.wunderground.com/personal-wea...ENGLAND609

...click on "about this PWS".

Regards,

Alistair G.