Kestrel temperature reading question

[Dan Robinson]

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?

 

[William Monfredo]

...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)?

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.

 

[Dan Robinson]

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.

 

[Jeff Duda]

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?