The Suprising Difficulty of Mounting a Weather Station
One item on my Christmas list that panned out was the Ambient Weather WS-2000 weather station. My sister got it for me!
It doesn't come with a real mounting bracket, and some searching Amazon landed me the Winegard J pipe mount. It comes in a 22" version (the DS-2000), which I originally ordered. It would have worked, but I wanted me clearance above the top of the fence. That led me to the DS-3000, which is 39".
I thought this would be easy: head to HD/Lowes and buy some u-bolts to mount the bracket to the fence post. This was easier said than done: everything I found was too big, or wide enough but too shallow, or too small. The stainless steel options were all among the too small category. To top it off, nearly all of the non-stainless ones had some pretty bad quality control: slightly bent (with the U not being in the same plane), rough threading, or both. They were very cheap, so it wasn't a huge loss to try out several variations...but they all were pretty suboptimal.
In the end, the solution was to go online to McMaster-Carr for a broader selection of u-bolts. Not only were there more sizes available than at HD/Lowes, but also more options as far as materials. I was able to order a size that worked in stainless steel, whereas the big box stores only stocked u-bolts in sizes too small for my application in stainless. There was also better quality control at work, as the bolts from McMaster-Carr were completely symmetric and not warped or bent at all. The larger bolts I purchased from HD and Lowes seemed to commonly be slightly twistest out of plane, such that they might need some pressure applied to line up with the plate holes. The McMaster-Carr bolts were definitely more expensive ($5-6 each), but they were definitely a better product. To top it off, they are USA-made!
I actually ordered 4 bolts (I needed 2): one pair in 5/16" thickness, and one pair in 3/8". I think I actually ended up just installing the slimmer 5/16". All of them were in 304 stainless steel. These are the pair of bolts in the above picture, bolting the bracket to the steel fence post.
The weather station has worked well so far, with the only 'issue' being that the metal coil that keeps debris out of the rainwater collection on the top of the cyliner seems to have...popped off? I'm not sure if it popped off on its own, or perhaps a bird lifted it out. It seems undamaged, though, and can be popped back in the next time I have a ladder nearby. The one reading from the station that is usually suspect is peak windspeed: the live oak on the other side of the fence breaks some of the wind gusts. The max windspeed recorded in storms is always suspiciously low as a result. It's still the best position for the weather station, though: every other possible mounting point along the fence has worse compromises.