[nparnold]

Thanks for your feedback, sorry i have been away the last 2 days. Yes Shred, im in Launceston too. I have taken mine back to Bunnings and got a refund no problem at all. Yes it was a complete unit, i bought it assuming it was a Fine Offset, but obviously not quite the same. The wire connections were the same except reversed if that makes sense. Due to the telephone cable being flat, the wire on the right one end was left the other end, so 1234 one end was 4321 the other.
I will keep an eye on Jaycar for a special, otherwise buy off Ebay.

Cheers
Nathan

[Boots33]

Hey Nathan
I got my weather set from OZ-AUCTION for $85 delivered a couple of months back.

They also have an online store under the name of crazy sales and have seen them there for $75 at times. their prices seem to be up around the $110 mark at the moment but they are always changing.

[nparnold]

Thanks

Hey Nathan
I got my weather set from OZ-AUCTION for $85 delivered a couple of months back.

They also have an online store under the name of crazy sales and have seen them there for $75 at times. their prices seem to be up around the $110 mark at the moment but they are always changing.

[werk_ag]

I'm located in Trevallyn, so not far from you. I went around in circles for a while trying to find a local source for the FIne Offset stations. It looks like I just missed out on Jaycar having a run out special on a low end Fine Offset station. They carry one of the more upmarket ones, but at (IIRC) around $140, it was a bit expensive to buy and throw half of it away. I ended up ordering one from an Australian eBay vendor for $99 delivered, although it hasn't yet arrived.

I had no idea it was so hard to get the Fine Offset spare parts in Australia.
Those FO wind sensors are really easy to find here in Europe, especially in UK and Spain. The price per unit is around 14€, but Maplin in UK, have them even more cheap (unfortunately, they only ship to UK).

[Shred]

I had no idea it was so hard to get the Fine Offset spare parts in Australia.

Yes, its a strange thing. I tried all sorts of local shops (DSE, Jaycar, K-Mart) - even garden supplies and outdoor places. As the OP found, the ones Bunnings (large hardware chain store) sell are not made by Fine Offset. Mine turned up on Friday. I bought it from the CrazySales eBay store mentioned earlier in the thread.

The station is a Maxkon branded WS-1081. I can understand why people want to replace the original electronics. The user interface is pretty annoying and I can't find anywhere in the setup procedure to apply compensation for altitude. Its readings for barometric pressure are way off, due to my location being at 200m above sea level.

[Stuarts]

I had no idea it was so hard to get the Fine Offset spare parts in Australia.

Yes, its a strange thing. I tried all sorts of local shops (DSE, Jaycar, K-Mart) - even garden supplies and outdoor places. As the OP found, the ones Bunnings (large hardware chain store) sell are not made by Fine Offset. Mine turned up on Friday. I bought it from the CrazySales eBay store mentioned earlier in the thread.

The station is a Maxkon branded WS-1081. I can understand why people want to replace the original electronics. The user interface is pretty annoying and I can't find anywhere in the setup procedure to apply compensation for altitude. Its readings for barometric pressure are way off, due to my location being at 200m above sea level.

The good thing is that you dont need to worry about the fine offset interface, even if you use all of the fine offset electronics. Cumulus is the only interface you really need to consider and you can set altitude there as well as compensate for offsets in sensors.

[Shred]

Cumulus is the only interface you really need to consider and you can set altitude there as well as compensate for offsets in sensors.

Yes: I noticed that. I'm running the beta Cumulus MX in a VM on my Linux box. I put the correct altitude in to the config and Cumulus magically took care of it. The readings for barometric pressure are very close to the "official" ones from the Weather Bureau's local station.

[AllyCat]

Hi,

I can't find anywhere in the setup procedure to apply compensation for altitude.

The Fine Offset Console has two values, "Absolute" and "Relative" Barometric Pressure. You can adjust one (on the Console or by using Easyweather) to correct for the altitude. Then ensure that the correct one is being shown on the LCD.

Full details are on the Cumulus forum, but the FO compensation value may get cancelled when/if you (need to) reset the station.
___

Yes, some (maybe many) items seem to be expensive and/or difficult to obtain in Australia. But I'd love to be able to buy a WH-3081 (Solar) station, or the one with that Hall-effect Vane, for the equivalent of less than AU$100 (£50, 70 Euros), which I've seen on occasions. Of course sales tax (VAT) is rather less and I wonder if any of those "specials" are actually "semi-rejects".

Cheers, Alan.

[Paul_V]

Any from Australia still looking, I got mine 2 months ago for $94.95 from http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/390366063833
They are selling for $109 now.

[Stuarts]

I friend mine bought one on ebay from a QLD seller many years ago. The sale went through fine. But when the temp/hum module got drowned when excessively heavy rain penetrated the radiation shield only a week after purchase, the backup support was attrocious. Although its the only occurrence I've ever heard of, it doesn't say much for the design. As we aren't using the module for Weatherduino its not an issue, unless the sensors we are using have a problem.

Just a warning that there are a lot of box sellers out there that have no intention of any warranty support. Some even offer different prices depending on how long a warranty you would like. The prices for the warranty inferred that the failure rate was pretty high.