[wxqc] Frustrations

[Thomas Giella KN4LF]

You guys aren't seeing the forest for the trees. Don and I both use Weather 
Display software to put our weather data on the WWW via the APRS system to 
the NWS from our Davis VP2 weather stations. However that setup would be a 
useless during an emergency like a hurricane strike, as we found out during 
the 2004 hurricane season when power failed and cable and telephone service 
went out. Don and I had generators for local power backup but the cable and 
phone company's didn't so our weather stations were dead in the water as far 
as data transfer.

APRS was invented by a ham radio operator and Don (KI4EFL) and I (KN4LF) are 
also ham radio operators and want to transmit our weather data to APRS via 
our 2 meter transceivers. We both purchased the data logger/PC/radio 
interfaces from Davis to do so but after spending allot of money for the 
interfaces we found out that we needed a different interface that costs even 
more $$$, to be able to interface our VP 2's with our 2 meter rigs.

We did research the situation and were led to believe that we had purchased 
the correct interfaces only to find out otherwise. As an example Peet 
Brothers weather stations have the data logger/PC/radio interface built in 
with no accessory purchase necessary.

I spent in excess of $1000 for my VP 2 weather station and it's irritating 
to see that Davis has no interest in making it clear in their literature and 
on their website as to which interface is necessary for interfacing a 
weather station to a 2 meter transceiver.

Take Care,
Thomas Giella, KN4LF
Retired Meteorologist
Lakeland, FL, USA
kn4lf at earthlink.net

Lakeland, Florida Daily Climatological Weather Data Archive: 
http://www.kn4lf.com/kn4lf22.htm