"DoN. Nichols" wrote:

It is rather anoying, I have a shop, decent sized lathe and mill and have yet to use them
to fix something at home. Now the machines at work on my time, I've used them often to
help me fix things at home before I had my shop up and running.

While I wind up making parts for things at home -- including
things which I doubt that I could buy anyway. Especially, things which
I have designed to fill a need, such as the mast for the new weather
station's sensors.

The sensors are battery powered, so I could use an insulating
support mast and not have to worry about lighting damage, but because of
the batteries, I will need access to them from time to time to change
cells. I don't particularly like climbing 24' in the air to reach the
housings -- especially in the kind of weather during which the cells are
likely to fail (cold, perhaps freezing rain, etc). So, I got 20' of
Sched 80 PVC pipe, turned up a knuckle to fit in the bottom and to pivot
on the mount to the wall, and machined a double pulley which straddles
the pipe at 19' off the ground. A rope goes half way around the pipe,
through the pulleys and down to the ground. Another rope is attached at
the same height to the pipe to pull it out from between the pulleys and
control it (with the pair which go through the pulleys) to guide it
around tree limbs on the way down and up. I can use the combination of
ropes to lay the pipe down on an old B&D Workmate while I change the
cells.

I'm running a LaCrosse solar powered wireless set up. Seems to avoid lighting issues just
fine. Buddy gave it to me when he installed a wired system. He is into instantanous wind
speed, something mine won't report since it samples every 10 minutes or so depending on
how I have it set.

Wes