Vandals, Cowards
 

I have a passion for Weather. When I got my HAM radio license a few years ago, that opened the door to track (not "chase") storms and severe weather, to report directly to the National Weather Service. Last summer, I experienced the tornado that hit the Boy Scout camp near Little Sioux, IA.

I made a rule not to go out at night, since funnel clouds are difficult to identify for the inexperienced. So the plan was to pick up a decent home weather center to report winds more precisely (this figure is important in issuing Severe Thunderstorm Warnings). Plus, it's a hobby that's fun. The plan was to hook it up to an online weather network.

The set is a wireless unit with wired capability. It wasn't working well wirelessly, so I temporarily set up a direct connection to the display inside. The installation was clean, with the exception of a barely visible wire into the back door.

Someone took offense. With the rain this morning not being reported on the display I went out to check if a wire came loose.

All of the wires were cut in multiple locations. What freaks me out is that someone was right outside my back door cutting wires, while we were inside. None of the meters or apparatus were touched -- just cut wires.

Stuff like this isn't cheap. I'd like to mount it on the roof or elevated high enough, but it's going to take a bit of repair first. It all has to come inside now, so I hope whoever did it is happy now. Little is sacred anymore...

RH77

that sucks. I looked into the online weather stuff for my pc, the cost was outrageous. My temps and NWS, and total rainfalls never ever, not once, match what they have written for bangor maine. They are always reading warmer. In fact, iof they got it correct, cold spot of the nation would be a bit more than they aren't admitting.

with cut wires, you can rerun and maybe conduit?

what do you use for weather station? I would be so satisfied to post -28F in my central bangor maine neghborhood to the web with integrity...
At -18F my 1781cc subaru rumbles my 3 story building...the pphyisics of beyond single digits in dead calm is absolutely freakin amazing...and noone gets it written apparently, like a blackout of thin oxygened brain.

RH77 -

Are there HOA nutbags where you live?

CarloSW2

Weird. Squirrels?

Frank -

Yeah, that too. RH77, did the cuts look like animal chewing? Maybe HOA squirrels?

CarloSW2

Maybe it was a ninja Tornado?

But seriously, sorry to hear it. Somebody stole the axle nut and skewer off my bicycle once, and it made me feel like my property wasn't safe unless it was locked up inside four walls. Sucks.

Squirrels with side-cut shears. All of the cuts were clean and at a similar angle. It's almost like a prank because the equipment was left alone.

The best part of the system is that they use phone cord and jacks, so putting new line together is pretty simple. The problem is that it all feeds into the temp unit and then out to the display wireless, so each component can't transmit by itself. Each part had a bunch of cord that had to be hidden under stairs to the back door. That's what was cut.

It's a LaCrosse 1612 -- seemed to be a good value. Once I got it hooked up, the wireless feature was giving odd wind speeds of 80+ MPH, so I set up this temporary wired deal. It comes with software to log all the paramaters on a PC. The nicest stuff is made by Davis and runs over $1000 -- way out of my price range.

So now it sits in a pile in my closet.

With storm season nearly over, I'll focus on next year. I may mount the temp sensor in a hidden location to monitor winter temps. By Spring, I'll have it back out, but this time on the roof where you'd need to put in some serious effort to mess with stuff.

Talking with the neighbors, it was probably some kids. The Police stopped-by, but as we know, it's not worthy to solve. It just means ramped-up patrols. I'm not mad, just disappointed.

RH77

We know 2 people on the HOA board who live next to us -- they're cool about stuff like that and seem to like us.

LOL! I knew someone would get me laughing in all this.

But yeah, I'm convinced people do stuff to random people out of spite. Bum deal about the bike. It makes you worry about anything that isn't bolted down. I've always locked my car doors if I park in the driveway, or anywhere, for example. But vandalism is odd -- it's damage for spite. The "Why" in all of this will haunt me for a while.

RH77

Sorry to hear that.

Maybe set up a security camera next year?

Probably some kids with nothing better to do. They put the neighborhood bus stop in my yard, so during the school year I end up with dead birds and rabbits in my mailbox, big rocks and litter in my yard, messages scribbled on things saying so and so is a **** or whatever. I'm sure if I tried to do something about it, I'd end up with worse like cars broken into, wires cut, stuff stolen, so I just let it be.

Hopefully it wasn't a neighbour who didn't like the appearance of wires in the yard.

You reminded me of a story:

When I was a kid growing up in suburban Toronto, my best friend lived 3 houses down from me. We got the idea that it would be cool to set up a telegraph between our bedrooms (both on the 2nd floor - important for logistical purposes, as you'll see).

The idea for wire evolved from trying to decipher morse code that we blinked via flashlight beams aimed on the backsides of the houses on the street behind us that we could both see (our windows were on the same plane, thus the need for the "screens"). I'm sure some of those neighbours wondered what was going on (if they even noticed).

So we askfed for & got permission from the two houses between us and strung a couple hundred feet of telephone wire between our 2nd floor windows. Then we bought a cheap doorbell intercom set so we could actually buzz & talk to each other. Much more efficient than morse code!

It was safe from squirrels, ninja tornadoes and vandals until we got bored and took it down (I'm guessing after a year or so).

Run a length of 240v cable with all the others.

That's pretty ingenious! Code takes a while to master. I recall back when I was a kid, folks were pretty relaxed if you weren't really breaking laws flagrantly. It seems like you knew everyone on your street -- and there was always that old "keep off my lawn!" guy as the exception.

Now, everyone has a fence (but us -- I refuse, fences split neighbors instead of fostering "neighborliness"). In this case, it may have been harder or more intimidating to get in to vandalize. But, I'm over it for now. The senseless act actually has forced me to install it in a better location.

Plus, I'm still laughing at the "Ninja Tornado" comment. I have to use that in some official capacity :)

RH77