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Reviews For: Davis Vantage VUE

Category: Weather Stations

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Review Summary For : Davis Vantage VUE
Reviews: 40MSRP: $350
Description:
Davis' wireless Vantage Vue weather station combines Davis' accuracy and durability into a compact station that's easy to set up and use. Perfect for home, school, or business.
Product is in production
More Info: http://www.davisnet.com/
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
00404
N8TNJ Rating: 2011-08-13
Great Company Time Owned: more than 12 months.
Had my Vantage Vue for 2 years, with no problems. Woke up one morning console was not receiving any data form the ISS. Changed out the battery dead, took it apart and cleaned the connections and checked a few things, still dead. Finally called Davis tech support, had me check a few things still dead. They sent me a transmitter and the battery holder, NO CHARGE!!! Got it in the mail the other day ISS is now working great. I recommend them to everybody looking for a weather station.
N2DY Rating: 2011-05-07
Update Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I had reported in an earlier review that the Vantage Vue would shut down due to 2 meter RFI. I saw that one reviewer shielded the case of the unit using metal-based spray paint. I went another route. I took the cover off and clipped a number of snap-on chokes to the wires running between the different modules inside the unit. The wires used are unshielded ribbon-type cables, about the worst thing you can use as far as RF is concerned. I now no longer have any RF issues and the Vantage Vue is working like a champ. The ham, public safety and perhaps the military communities are big users of Davis Weather products and so they should make an effort to correct this design flaw going forward. That being said, for the bang for the buck you cannot get a better, more accurate weather station than the Vantage Vue. I am very happy to have it up and running properly again.
N4CQR Rating: 2011-04-26
Good Solid Product Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
Purchased my unit January of 2011 and installed it temporarly on the deck. It will be moved at a later date but in summary here is what I have learned.

Installation and setup is a breeze. I got mine going without referencing the manual. Setup is straight forward and simple. Readings have been consistant with those from a small airport AWOS 3 miles north of me.

The only con I canthink of is that wind reading should be taken at 33' and temp. taken at 5' from the ground. Since everything is intergrated into one case, that is not possible.

However, at 10' above the ground, where I have mine now, does give more of a ground truth reading.

All in all a very good investment.

73
Craig

G4EBN Rating: 2011-03-14
Susceptible to RFI Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
Apologies this will be quite long, not a rant I hope.
I operate 50watts on 2metres into a multiband colinear, on a mast 35 feet high.
I have bought many cheap Weather Stations all of which stopped working so I decided to buy a more expensive semi professional unit and chose the Vantage Vue.
The unit arrived and due to my lack of research I soon realised that the cost of connecting to my computer was going to be the 2/3 of the price of the entire unit or some non trivial construction work.
I thought that at least the Vantage Vue was more accurate than most cheaper units.
Before I installed the ISS unit outside I noticed it had stopped sending to the console unit.
I removed/refitted the ISS's battery, put a bright light on it to charge, pressed the 'reset' button & the data was being displayed on the console again.
When the ISS unit & the Console unit were next to each other on a table the inside and outside temp/humidity readings were not the same. I equalised them by programming an offset on the outside temp/humidity. After a while the inside and outside readings were different again by about 0.75DegC and about 15%.
I mounted the Vantage Vue on my mast 10 feet below my colinear antenna.
It worked for a week until it came to the Sunday morning RSGB news roundup.
After exchanging reports etc. the console was not receiving the ISS unit.

Having purchased the unit through Amazon UK with their exemplory customer service, within 18 hours a second replacement unit was delivered and 30 days to return the original.

I swapped the ISS units on the mast.

The console units were again giving different readings & needed new offsets so both consoles gave the same readings. All except the wind speed which has no programmable offset. There was as much as 6 mph difference between the two consoles.
Again Sunday came and this time I was watching what happened when I transmitted on 2 metres.
Of course the ISS stopped transmitting and I now need to reclimb the flat roof and hopefully only need to press the 'reset' button on the the ISS.

I could coat the inside of the ISS with screening paint etc. as described by K1FSY (Who's review title I pinched - many thanks) and would invalidate the 1 year warranty.

I don't quite know what to do now. I could put up another mast on the opposite side of the house, but that may or may not work. It might still be too close to RF fields. (I havent even tried HF yet), not to mention any planning restrictions that another mast may create!
Should I go back to square one and start again with something else?

Given that if one doesn't have any RFI problems and the accuracy of the unit is no better than the nearest weather report from maybe 10 miles away the unit is a good one IMHO.
Graphs on the console unit have no scale.
Hence the need to connect to a computer.
On the whole the unit is pretty simple to use and install.
The Console has many selectable displays for all weather data.
So, given all the hassles above is why I have given it a 3 (a 4 if you don't have RFI problems.)
I am still somewhat puzzled by the high price.
W6CD Rating: 2011-01-19
So far so good - very pleased Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
Santa was good to me. Installation and setup was straight forward and without issue. All works as it should. Has been operational for about three weeks. Seems to be a very good piece of equipment.

Next is to get it internet connected - have the IP direct connected interface and data logger on order.
K1FSY Rating: 2010-12-16
Fixed the RFI problem Time Owned: 3 to 6 months.
This is a followup to my review below. I had RFI issues with the replacement unit sent back to me by Davis as well. I solved it, however, using MG Chemical Super Shield nickle conductive aerosol paint. The unit itself is a plastic shell, and inside are a couple of ribbon cables leading to another plastic enclosure housing the circuit board encased in gel for waterproofing. I removed the board enclosure and painted it with two coats of the shielding paint, and also sprayed the inside of the top cover. Now it's back on the roof directly in the path of my antenna stack (check QRZ for a picture) and I have yet to have it lock up.

Only rating it a 4 because I had to go out and spend $30 on a can of paint to make it usable, otherwise it works great.
EA5BZ Rating: 2010-05-05
Excellent. Time Owned: 3 to 6 months.
I own 2 Davis Vantage Vue.
Setup is done in only 30 minutes.
They are running really fine.
Online at:
http://www.cabodesantapola.org
http://www.palotes.com
KA2WYG Rating: 2010-05-04
Fantastic Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I have owned my Vue for about a month now and so far so good. It was easy to setup and took less then 15 minutes to do so. This is an upgrade from my Acu-Rite 595 and there is simply no comparison. For $200 more then the Acu-Rite the Vue is an “instrument” compared to a “toy”.

I’ve compared my Vue to about a dozen other weather stations in my area on Weather Underground and found it to average the readings of those other stations.

The Vue covers indoor and outdoor temps and humidity, barometric pressure, rain amounts, wind speed and direction along with dew point, heat index and wind chill. It updates every 2.5 seconds, which is more or less real time.

The outside weather suite is solar powered during the day and charged capacitors keep it going at night. It also has a lithium battery backup for those cloudy days.

I do agree with the previous review about the outrageous price of the data logger. I think Davis would sell many more of them if they where about $50.

In closing, I highly recommend the Davis Vantage Vue, for less then $300 it is truly a weather watchers dream.
K5MO Rating: 2010-01-02
Good, expensive option Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I've had my Davis VUE installed for a few days now. It goes together easily and works much better than the old lacross it replaces, which lost wireless communication some time ago.

The only thing keeping this from being a 5 are two items:

1) The data logger is optional and VERY expensive ($150 for a dongle to connect to a computer is way out of line)

2) The on screen graphs have no scales on the axis. This makes the front screen graph function only marginally useful.

Set up is quick and easy.
KD4HXT Rating: 2009-12-31
Wonderful Experience Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
Since I have the greatest wife in the world, I think she heard my moaning about the Lacross Technology 2310 weather station that I put into operation in June 2005. I moaned about it’s continuous failure, RF issues, and really bad rain collector. We’ve always been a weather buff or at least interested with weather and it’s extremes. At first the 2310 worked great and everyday it was a joy to observe local weather and upload that data to NOAA and other services that collected it. Over time it became a frustration and many weather data collectors flagged my station for bad data.

Christmas Day I was totally blown away when a Davis Vantage VUE was found under the tree. This is a new Davis Instruments product that was released over the Summer of 2009. While it’s not considered the top of the line, it was designed for home weather enthusiasts in mind. Yet, it’s a complete package of professional quality instruments that give a complete picture of current measurements.
The system consists of three separate components;
1) Vantage VUE Console
2) Vantage VUE Integrated Sensor Suite (ISS)
3) Weatherlink USB Data Connector and Software

The back light display is excellent when the room is dim. It shows all the information you might need to see and is customizable in many display functions. It also made setup of date/time/Lat-Long/Altitude/ very easy. It uses “C” batteries for backup and plugs in with a wall wart AC adaptor. It rotates interesting data if you allow it too. For example, today it says “Lunar Eclipse” and “Blue Moon”. always nice to know. You plug the WeatherLink data module into this console.
The ISS module holds all the outside instruments.

This is a wireless device, using 900 MHz spread spectrum technology. I don’t have any wireless phone in that range, so I don’t know how those phones might effect it. The instructions did mention to keep the base station away from wireless phones. The ISS is also solar powered with 1/2 watt cell and 3v lithium battery that it charges for use at night or when the sun is dim. The ISS is full of quality measuring devices including Temperature and Humidity Sensors in a Radiation Shield. It also has an Anemometer, Wind Vane, and Rain collector. The Barometer is located inside the console along with indoor Temperature and Humidity Sensors.
Since I wanted to send my collected data to the outside world over the Internet, I needed the Weatherlink Data Cable. All Davis Consoles come without data ports and this is only an option. It does seem expensive and comes with software that does a number of visual displays and trending of data as received by the console.

Setup and Installation
All in all our total time for initial setup and installation was less than 60 minutes. About 10 minutes was spend installing Wind Cups and Wind Vane parts, a filter for the Rain Collector, and the backup battery in the ISS. It immediately communicated with the console and 5 minutes later I had that setup.
Outside, we removed the Lacross system and decided to change the position of the sensors. We purchased 15 feet of TV antenna mast pipe and cut off the existing PVC about 5 feet above the concrete bucket we use for support. The TV mast sits right inside the PVC, so I did not have to build anything else for support. The ISS attached with a u-bolt to the mast and up it went. Data was following and collecting. Let me note – ZERO PROBLEMS.
Now to get the data on the Internet. On my weather specific PC (Pentium 600MHz, 360MB memory) running XP Pro, I un-installed all the Lacross software. I unplugged the old serial-USB adaptor from the 2310 and plugged in the 12 foot USB cable from the Davis Console. I loaded the Weatherlink software. It provides USB drivers and a virtual serial port software that allows you to assign different com ports for external software. Once installed, I started my favorite weather software WUHWU. I changed a few configurations to ID the Davis Console and the Com Port to the assigned value. We hit START and data started coming into the software from the Davis Console. Zero problems. I should note that we use WUHWU because it uploads to Weather Underground, NOAA’s CWOP, AWEKAS, and PWS all at the same time with real easy setup and reporting.

Operation Impressions
I could not happier with this unit. I did add another 5 feet of mast, and now the ISS is up at 20 feet above the ground. We also took another look at our GPS altitude data and made an adjustment to reported station altitude. It put our barometer right on with the airport. Data flows continuously and the rain event we had Wednesday was completely recorded. NOAA reports that my quality checks are all OK. It feels good to have reliable data.

I have had some RF issues on the USB cable, but some chokes on those lines amd it seemed to clean up the problem. I’ve not had RF issues on the ISS or console. My 100 Watt radio is right next to the console and my HF Full Wave loop is close to the ISS unit. We’ll see what develops during the RTTY Roundup this weekend. RTTY always finds RF issues if you have them.
The value of the Davis Vantage VUE seems excellent. Thanks to my family for providing great joy in this hobby.