• After witnessing the continued decrease of involvement in the SpotterNetwork staff in serving SN members with troubleshooting issues recently, I have unilaterally decided to terminate the relationship between SpotterNetwork's support and Stormtrack. I have witnessed multiple users unable to receive support weeks after initiating help threads on the forum. I find this lack of response from SpotterNetwork officials disappointing and a failure to hold up their end of the agreement that was made years ago, before I took over management of this site. In my opinion, having Stormtrack users sit and wait for so long to receive help on SpotterNetwork issues on the Stormtrack forums reflects poorly not only on SpotterNetwork, but on Stormtrack and (by association) me as well. Since the issue has not been satisfactorily addressed, I no longer wish for the Stormtrack forum to be associated with SpotterNetwork.

    I apologize to those who continue to have issues with the service and continue to see their issues left unaddressed. Please understand that the connection between ST and SN was put in place long before I had any say over it. But now that I am the "captain of this ship," it is within my right (nay, duty) to make adjustments as I see necessary. Ending this relationship is such an adjustment.

    For those who continue to need help, I recommend navigating a web browswer to SpotterNetwork's About page, and seeking the individuals listed on that page for all further inquiries about SpotterNetwork.

    From this moment forward, the SpotterNetwork sub-forum has been hidden/deleted and there will be no assurance that any SpotterNetwork issues brought up in any of Stormtrack's other sub-forums will be addressed. Do not rely on Stormtrack for help with SpotterNetwork issues.

    Sincerely, Jeff D.

Kestrel temperature reading question

Dan Robinson

Dan Robinson

EF5
Joined
Jan 14, 2011
Messages
3,405
Location
St. Louis
I bought a Kestrel 3500 for use during winter weather outings, mainly to monitor temperature and wet-bulb temps. I'm having some issues getting temperature readings, and I haven't found any useful info on this in documentation and online discussions.

When I take the unit outside, the temperature reading slowly falls - pausing for a moment or two or even rising briefly a couple of times. Even after 5 minutes, it hadn't stabilized nor fallen to anything even close to the nearest ASOS. My last test today, the BLV ASOS was reading 33F, the 3500 was hovering at 46F (+ or 1 about 2) degrees after 5 minutes.

The specs say the unit should provide a temperature reading within 1 second, but elsewhere I've seen support documents saying that a significant change in environment might take up to 15-20 minutes to get a stable reading. Does this mean that I'm not going to be able to just get out of the car and get a temperature reading outside (without staying out for 30 minutes)? Is there some other technique that I'm missing?
 
Dan Robinson said:
...a significant change in environment might take up to 15-20 minutes to get a stable reading...
Click to expand...
Dan Robinson said:
Does this mean that I'm not going to be able to just get out of the car and get a temperature reading outside (without staying out for 30 minutes)?
Click to expand...
I've used Ambient and Acu-Rite sensors and they can produce quite a bit of frustration, because they adjust SOoooo slowly.
It may have something to do with the housing that contains the electronics. I feel for your situation.
 
Last edited:
Per a suggestion by Robin Tanamachi, I tried slinging it around like a psychrometer via its lanyard, and this seemed to get a stable/accurate temp reading after about 2 minutes. 26.8F, less than 1/2 mile from the KBLV ASOS that is reading 27F.
 
That's what I was going to suggest, but that's still too slow for a sensor like that. I had a 3500 for a few years and the slinging action would get it to the new temperature within 10-15 seconds. You might have a defective sensor or the housing around the temperature sensor may be bad. Is there extra plastic blocking it?
 
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