I have finally received the necessary supplies to connect my new weather station to the internet at large. Currently, I have the thing in two different places, each with their own datasets.
However, please let me warn you first - some features are not yet set up. For instance, two of the sensors in my system - the rain gauge and the anemometer - have not yet been mounted outside. Therefore, the only data being broadcast to the internet is outdoor temperature and humidity.
The pages being generated by Virtual Weather Station are being kept here. I am also broadcasting my data live (via Rapid Fire feature) to Weather Underground, station KCOLITTL32. An important point to remember: the sensor was not located directly outside for some time - it was in an open window - so some of the stats may be skewed a little. Any data from 2030 onward should be OK though.
Bah.
They’ve changed the goals for agents once again. Now, they’re adding all sorts of metrics into our stack ranking - AHT, Adherence, NPFs, Quality of Dispatch, QA scores among others. While this is good news for me - I do my job well - it is not good news for some of our agents who have been platinum by simply taking enough calls per hour, and have not been providing resolutions.
I just bought myself the Oregon Scientific WMR-968 weather station (and no, I didn’t pay the list price of $299.99 - Google it, there are much lower prices out there!), and I have to say, it’s a fairly nice piece of equipment. The unit comes with 4 sensors - an indoor baro/thermo/hygrometer, outdoor thermo-hygrometer, rain gauge, and anemometer. All of these sensors come together in a slick little main unit, which features touch-screen controls, weather forcasting, history, you name it, it probably has it. The base station is also capable of detecting 3 optional sensors - I had an old Oregon Scientific indoor/outdoor wireless thermometer (don’t know the model, sorry), and the base station started picking up info from that sensor right away.
However, the real interesting bit about this station, and the reason I bought this one (other than the price) is because it has the ability to make a connection via built-in serial port to any PC. Using this unit in conjunction with Virtual Weather Station from Ambient Weather, I can automatically download data from the unit to my computer, perform graphing and trend spotting, and easily upload real-time data to the Internet - to my own site, as well as several others, the most popular of which is Weather Underground.
The moral of this story: stay tuned. I will soon be launching a new weather website into the mattfast1 network of sites, that shows real-time data from my weather system. Before that happens, though, I have to find a good way to mount the system - I decided not to purchase any mounting hardware with the station (since I already spent so much on the station, software, and cables), so I need to either get a mounting bracket, or some other way to mount it all. At least this way I’m gonna save a lot of money on shipping - for the tripod, shipping was over $17 - after spending another $110 on the entire tripod.
ENGLEWOOD, CO, US
02/05/2008 5:35 P.M. DELIVERY
02/05/2008 5:06 A.M. OUT FOR DELIVERY
02/05/2008 4:01 A.M. ARRIVAL SCAN
How does it take 12 hours and 29 minutes for a package to be delivered after going out on the truck? I can understand if I was some distance away from their facility - but I live 5 miles west of the Englewood, Colorado UPS facility. Used to drive by the place all the time when I was bored at work.
UPS’s shipments are always like this. I’ll see my shipment listed as out for delivery anytime between 5am and 6am, but I don’t think I’ve ever had a delivery from them before 3pm. This delivery was later than usual, normally they will come between 3 and 4. It’s not like it was a big, heavy package - only 10 pounds (as billed by them). I understand there are places for them to get to before they come deliver residential packages - but they could have easily had this package delivered around 9 or 10 am.
I think next time, I’m going to include additional instructions in my orders to companies I order from online - “UPS/FedEx/DHL is authorized to deliver package during day. Person will be at home”. Maybe I can get them to come a little earlier that way?