It was my grandad's 80th this month...

As with all men who are a bit older, the family had no idea what to buy him. He was a gardener all his life and has a fabulous extremely well kept and colorful garden in the highlands of Ireland with a small stream running through it and the works. We're talking the highlands where they still speak Gaelic more commonly than English... anyway I digress.

After some collective brainstorming, we stumbled across small personal weather stations which can be installed outside and monitor stats like temperature, wind speed, air pressure and rainfall. This data is then fed wirelessly to a monitoring unit which runs off batteries and also collects information on the temperature and things indoors to allow you to compare what you are feeling with regards to outside. So we decided to go for it and grab him one for his birthday!

(Image 1: The home weather station(s) we got!)

Naturally, after installing the thing at my grandparents house in Ireland everyone was excited to see a mini home weather station which gives short term predictions of what to expect in the near future. In light of this, my parents decided they would also like one - hence this blog - and here are the pictures to show you what we done and where for your general interest ^_^:

(Image 2: We mounted the external parts to the top corner of the garage wall using an old TV aerial bracket which fit the mast perfectly)

(Image 3: Shot of the weather instruments for a different angle. The position is quite exposed to the elements unlike the rest of the garden so gives good readings to the meter!)

(Image 4: Close up of the wireless monitoring unit. This was actually out of range of the radio signal from the instruments but you get the idea.)

(Image 5: I keep the monitoring unit indoors next to the mining rigs so I can monitor the temperature of the shed as well as check the temperature difference with outside. Lets me know when to leave the door open to try and bring down the ambient temps inside due to the rigs making it really hot!)

And that's it! I hope you enjoyed this little snippet from our garden. If you have any questions on the weather station equipment please feel free to comment and I can do my best to explain.

Cheers!