I spent the entire day relocating my anemometer. For seven years I have just had it mounted on my ISS unit. Wind readings have never been accurate because the unit is blocked by my cabin. Wind direction data has been particularly annoying as the cabin causes the wind to swirl and the result was that the direction was almost always exactly opposite of what was actually happening. I finally came to the realisation that there is no point in measuring inaccurately.
Today I mounted the anemometer on the end of 3-meter pole which I bolted into the end of a glu-lam beam that runs along the top of my cabin. This gets the wind cups about 2 meters above the highest point on my roof, which is about 12 meters above the ground. I ran 30 meters of exterior-grade, waterproof Cat5 cable up to my rooftop and spliced it into the anemometer. Then I spliced the other end into the telephone connector inside the ISS unit. When I plugged it in, the anemomter immediately started detecting wind speed and direction. I love it when a plan comes together.
Whilst I was up there, I got really brave and decided to install the heater in my ISS unit that I had never taken out of the box since I purchased it seven years ago. The Davis-supplied power cable was 50 feet long. Naturally, that was 10 feet too short. Two hours later, after a trip down the mountain to the electrical supplier, I ran 60 feet of 18 AWG four-conductor wire to the ISS and wired up the heater.
When I do something around the cabin, there is always a requirement that I include something stupid so that it takes all day. Today was no exception. Whilst I was drilling a small hole through the exterior cabin wall for the heater power cable, I managed to pick the only spot that would guarantee I would drill right through the Cat5 cable powering one of my security cameras. That only set me back about 90 minutes before I could get the camera back online.
Eventually, the heater was wired up and working. This winter I will be able to melt snow in the collector cup and get an accurate precipitation reading.
At day's end, I am thrilled with the improvements. My wife thinks I'm crazy.