Weather Cams getting old and so am I

[Doc]

Haven't had a chance to do much with WC for some time.  I'm happy to report that it's working great.  The computers and other hardware have been showing their age though, and I have too.  It's hard to maintain things these days.  WC is running very stable on my old G5 Quad, most of my academic work has ended now, and I'm fully retired and doing other volunteer work when I can depending on health issues.  The Mobile WC installation works, but not very often (I don't get to go out much), I don't do web updates with it and there is no cam on the WC setup.  I've learned that mobile data collection is MUCH different than from a fixed station.  The Davis rain bucket doesn't work mobile, it will fail quickly when driving over harsh terrain, even with the reed switch shock mounted and sealed with silicon, they just can't handle the vibration and break quickly.  The rest of the mobile station could care less that it's mobile.  Next season, I'll work on a better way of mounting it all, but for now it works fine.


My venerable old webcam is still slugging away.  The color is now gone, which thrilled my academic partner since he didn't need color images anyway.  Low light sensitivity continues to work very well, the images from Evocam have little noise on them and show great detail at times.  I've picked up a lot of noise though over the last year, had to replace the remote transmitter several times.  On my list of hardware is a used intel mac mini that I can dedicate WC to with the latest software and nothing else fighting for attention.  Then I can dispense with the remote transmitter and do a direct feed from the cameras.  Our pan and tilt rotor still works great, but can and does freeze below 5?F.  I need to replace the coax and other control cables, the squirrels have eaten a lot of the insulation off the lines.  It's all becoming a study in how long things can be made to last without major repair or intervention.  The Davis VP2+ is 8 years old now and working very well, I don't have to keep a box of the ISS batteries on hand, they fail more than they used to, I have to replace a battery once every 3-4 months, usually at night, right before, or during severe weather 

Stu and all, keep up the great work, WC is the best there is!

[WCDev]

Thanks for the update Doc - good to hear from you!

Cheers,
Stu.