Trailer Mounted Weather Stations

Who makes the best trailer mounted weather base station and why. Looking for a good one that transmits updated weather data either to a cell phone or a pager.

 

Lol, this is the new humble me.

 

Bob, I have a hand held Computech Raceair Pro unit now. The problem with a hand held is the constant changing weather between what is seen in the pits, then what is seen in the staging lanes and then what is seen at the starting line. If it gets in the sun it reads one setting, if you put it in your pocket your body heats it up and you have to let it cool down and stabilize before you get another reading. So what really does the motor see? I find it hard to get consistancy. I have held the weather station out the tow car window in the breeze while towing the car to the staging lanes and get a reading totally different to what is read in the staging lanes while waiting. These differences can be up to 500ft so which one is correct? It seems to me a reading from stationary sensors on a mast away from all this is the way to go. I track the weather between rounds for planning for the next run and the heat from the generator or the reflection of the sun off the trailer next to us changes it or I will lay it down and now the sun is on it and heating it up. I had the use of one on top of a mast on the trailer at the last race and it was stable and didn't change much and gave me the weather on the pager when up in the staging lanes. It was great. They cost right at $1500 and some will feed the weather right into the Racepak Datalink program for records plus give you trends on the laptop.

 

It isn't a question of how good a Kestral or a Raceair Pro is. They both read the air where you are physically standing just fine. Read my previous post above as to what the problem is. The performance of our Promod changes with a 500ft error in Density Altitude. Many of a race was decided by time in the 100ths and 1000ths of a second and that can be as a result of a 500ft error in DA. We ran against a fast group of nitrous and blower cars in ADRL legal PM and down in the Snowbirds at Bradenton. The error on the DA is not as bad in cooler weather or when there is a stiff breeze blowing but there wasn't much cool air this last summer.

 

The Raceair Pro has a fan in it also but still have inconsistent readings depending on where in the track I am. Try it sometime before a race starts. Get the Day in the pits, then in the staging area then drive the golf cart down the track while reading average Day. I use the .001.

 

krestal

Mike,

I agree with you on the trailer mount vs mobile.

I have had good luck with Altalab pager unit.

I have worked with a couple of teams that had a Krestal, I was not a fan of how quickly the weather changes from walking from one location to the other.

I use a Computech handheld with Foster's car, and I have a set location in the pit/shade I read from and try to find shade under the FC body in the lanes to make my call.

The only thing to watch for with the trailer mount deal is you need to make sure you take it down in heavy rain. It may take it longer to air out than it takes to dry the track...

 

Thanks Will and Chris. I agree the Altalab is the best one I have found so far. The weather should not be changing as much as the handheld units show. I have found the weather in the shade next to the trailer to be very different from what I read in the final part of the staging area. It also makes a difference if you are pitted on grass or asphalt. I guess the best thing to do is mount a temp probe on the hat and record the temperature going down the track and then find which reading before the run is closest and use that. Will at least with a FC you have a shade from the body. I will try that with Adam's new Funny Car. Like I said before the temperature difference seems to be magnified more when it is real hot with lots of sun. If overcast then it is not so much of a problem. When I get the trailer mounted unit I am going to do some comparisons with the hand held unit and see what the differences are in different types of weather. I will let you know what I find out.

 

Please email me at mike.c@mindspring.com with the info

 

Hi Doug. The car will always slow down as the DA gets higher or what we call worse air. There is no way around it. I am surprised you only slowed down .05 seconds with a 1800ft change. That is pretty good. What I am saying is I don't know what the correct weather is because it changes so much depending where you take the reading and where the hand held weather station had been laying. It maybe 500 ft or it may be less or it may more. The important thing is to not lay the weather station in the sun or in your pocket or on the ground and to always try and do it the same way every time. Will Hanna has the best deal on bringing his shade with him under the open FC body.