Celestron $99 Wx Station

The $99 Celestron wx station from OPT has been up and running since Sept.  I have been wanting a rain guage for the Davis but it was almost as much as this whole thing!  It has been working great. Until.... last weekend we had a small rain but I noticed the rain total was not counting.   Then I nioticed  a huge  rain total eariler in the week ( a huge High Pressure system with 8" rain we did not notice  ~I think not)  I went up on the roof and took a look... visions that it got blown over or something.

There was a huge spider living under the leveling platform but every thing seemed OK I tipped it a couple times as well.  I checked  the batteries and they were amost still new ( 1.49V) This guy must have been running  back and fourth on the tipper or a bird was trying to get him or something! Too funny.

Now I need to hack the wireless link to get rain and other data for the APRS. The beauty of wireless hack is the display gets the data as well and I don't have to come up with a fancy display.  Yesterday,  I   found a pretty interesting looking little receiver from Digikey that will likely be able to hear this simple RF stream. (simple = not spread spectrum) :

The  ALPHA-RX433S looks real flexible. It will need to be programmed via SPI ..no dip switches...but it will be hooked to the Arduino anyway ...and for $6 bucks?  Yeah, worth a try.  I also found a helical antenna... ANT-433-PW-LP  sure  a wire will do just fine for receive but this is too cool: (for $2 - why not?)  If this dosen't work maybe  I'll get the transmitter as well and will have a new toy to play with...sending data and stuff...

This station is probabily made by another manufacturer and  branded  by Celestron so this will most likely work with other wireless stations.  Stay tuned....

PS. No spider was harmed during this repair ~ Ilive and let live I say~  But I am pretty sure it was his web that caused the bucket to stop tipping.  but  the extra rain count is still a mystery....