Wondering if any club has had any luck fabricating their own wind meter. We have a nice windsock on top of our building, and thought there would be a nice place for a wind meter. Anyone with plans or advice?

I think Heathkit still makes a anemometer (wind meter). Otherwise, Davis Weather Instruments makes an excellent product:

http://www.davisnet.com/weather/prod....asp?pnum=7911

There are hand-held anemometers as well that are fairly accurate. When I was a weather observer in the USAF I'd use one when our fixed equipment was on the blink.

Another option is the Beaufort Scale, which can give you a rough indication of the wind speed. http://www.zetnet.co.uk/sigs/weather...s/beaufort.htm I'm surprised most clubs don't have it posted on their frequency/information board.

Check out a Home-n-Garden type store. I have had little garden wind/rain gauges that are basically a protractor with a weighted arm. The wind blows the arm up a graduated scale and shows a relatively accurate reading (about six bucks). A place that sells sailboats might have a little gauge I have seen that has a double tube with a little foam ball on one side. You hold it up and the wind blowing across the tubes causes the little white ball to rise along a graduated scale ($15). An European (Swiss/Swedish?) firm makes some small handheld instrumuments that are accurate ($100 to $300). Look on the West Marine website for handhelds used for sailors. (www.westmarine.com)

One of the most popular used by the glider guys is the Kestrel .

Really accurate, small, easy to use, and they run about $100.

A good wind sock is a wind meter. I forget what the rule of thumb was. Something like straight out meant at least 15 Knots and half way meant something like 5 or 10 Knots.

Check Ebay there is some nice meters on there for a good price.

When you get into the smaller socks that clubs are likely to have there's no real rule of thumb. The packaging they come in might provide some guidance.

In real life, I distribute industrial instruments. Here is a link to one of Dwyer Instruments anemometers that sells for just under $100.00:

Dwyer vane type anemometer

Also, here is a link to a windsock mfg/distributor, their pricing looks pretty good to me:

Aradyne Windsocks

Jon

Picked this up at RS for $30, so far not bad at all. Only down side is the range, 6-30mph. Uses pressure differential from 4 sensor ports to calculate speed and direction.

http://www.radioshack.com/product.as...5Fid=63%2D1119

Check this out. I might give it a try myself!
http://www.otherpower.com/anemometer.html

Check this out. I might give it a try myself!
http://www.otherpower.com/anemometer.html

They are currently on sale at The Shack for $19.99!!!!!!!
Got mine today.

I haul from Montreal.
A pair of gizmo-tech oriented guys at our field installed a local weather station that transmits on our Web site the field conditions every 5 minutes.
Check it at www.wimac.org
Albert

COOL! We'd need a grass and dandelion meter at our field in addition to wind.

We use a 3/8" chain, 6 ft long bolted to a 7 ft pole , when it sticks straight out some don't fly. Just one of the good things about living in South Dakota. MAX H.

Somewher 'round here, ( you know how that goes) I have plans for a simple protractor type wind guage. Basically., it's a steel rod pendulum with a ping pong ball and mounted on a sheet metal protractor. If you want to go low-tech and build your own, I'll have a look around for the plan.

ddubya

ddubya, Sounds interesting think you could post those plans?