Weather station update

The Harris Hill weather station has been up at the flight center for a couple of weeks and I check it each time I go up there. It's working without a problem right now.

The original console had an issue where it was very reluctant to restart if you removed power to it. I'd been on the phone to Davis tech support and gotten it working once but was unable to get it to work after I moved it out to Harris Hill.

Davis gives a one year warranty and sent me a refurbed unit that works a treat!

Now, the weather station and the computer with the Weather Link software are happily churning away and recording data.

The last mile - making that all important connection to the National Soaring Museum's internet access. To get the station online in internet land, we need the NSM's internet connection. This weekend, I scoped out how to do that with the museum's tech rep and I think we've got a reasonable solution figure out to put it on the side of the building with an easy link to the flight center. Piece of cake.

I ordered the cable needed and have been building my cantenna to make the link to the flight center. As soon as it arrives, we'll install and should be able to get online with the system!

In other flying news, I flew for 49 minutes in difficult conditions, spending most of my time spinning circles. Good practice for thermalling, which is what I'm trying to get better at. I got off tow in a thermal about 500 feet lower than normal tow height, circled for awhile, mostly keeping altitude and finally gaining a few hundred feet, then headed out to find another thermal. They were close together but didn't go very high.

I kept at it, moving from one place to another and always finding some lift. I finally managed 4,000 feet but that was about it for the height of the thermals. I'd forgotten to check my watch for takeoff time and thought I better get back in case someone was waiting to fly -there were a lot of people on the field, many of them assembling gliders.

When I got back, several of the 'pros' had been up and back down quicker than I had as they tried to stay aloft. I guess I did alright for the day!