[uncle_bob]

Can someone please tell me where they are getting their 30-pin DIP / DIL sockets from for their Arduino Nano?

I un-soldered it from another piece of equipment but man it wasn't easy or pretty. They tend to end up looking like a banana
I only used this for my stripboard board and with the production systems I soldered the Nano's directly in.

My Nano with CH340G chipset arrived yesterday and I tried manually press fitting it into a "Turned Pin" / "Precision" 40-pins socket (which I have not soldered to the board yet) but it would not go in (too tight, hurt my fingers) whereas it did go into a standard / cheap 40-pin socket (the ones with the weak bendy thin legs) but with considerable force needed from my fingers.

Yep, these are the same as I mentioned above and they are always a tight fit.

I was thinking that maybe I could cut up a 40 pin socket for use on the actual PCB but then there would only be one supporting "bridge" of plastic at one end of the board, and I always use those bridges to lever against when I am removing the chip from it's socket.

That will be fine, once it's soldered in, it's strong. You can lever either against the other end, or against the PCB.

I can only find Turned Pin 30 pin sockets in UK, and they are too tight for this style of chip (with the Nano having it's pins that stick up into your fingers) whereas this type of socket did allow me to fit my Nintendo / Ricoh RP2C03B PPU in rather nicely when I was doing my Nintendo NES RGB modification.

Yeah, I couldn't get a Nano in one of these either or any other DIP chips have.

I can find a NTE435K30 from Radioshack that looks like it would do the job nicely, but I don't seem to be able to obtain these in UK and I can't order from Radioshack in USA? and there are none on Ebay that I can see.

As above, if you're dead set on using a socket, just (very carefully) cut the socket back. I broke the first one doing so with small sidecutters.
I'd recommend soldering the unsupported socket pins in place with the Nano (or another DIP chip) in the socket to ensure the socket stays in shape.

BTW my friend's old Davis VP1 arrived and it's a disaster, the transmitter board is corroded with blue Copper Sulphate deposit (something ate the PCB's copper), I tried a new power cell in the PCB with cleaned contacts on the battery terminals and still no transmissions on 868 MHz (I used my scanner dongle, I can hear the transmissions from my FO 1081 clearly on 433.9MHz), the wind vane has much higher resistance to turning than it should have (worn out? grit / dirt in bearings?), the transmitter box has both of the 2 tabs broken off so the cover won't stay on, the cover itself is missing, and the tipping Rain guage cover (inverted plant pot) is missing. And he forgot to send me the console. LOL.

Better build him a WeatherDuino too

Finally my FO1081 had a wind speed glitch of 103Km/h tonight, the 2nd one in 2 weeks, with 2 different anemometers!

Alistair, that's one of the key reasons why I took on this project. Another was the Wireless connection was real flaky, even while being very close.

Good luck, though it sounds like you know what you are doing and shouldn't need luck, just your skills

BTW; Maybe you should start you own go to whoa thread, just so it's easier to follow for other readers and people who are here just to poach Werk's code