Interesting phenomena when near shooting range

I have my weather station set up about 100 feet from my shooting range. Whenever I start shooting, I get a notification that it has started raining. Not really a problem but interesting.

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That is interesting. Can you describe the position in relation to your rangeā€¦like is your sky roughly in line with your firing line or 100ā€™ off to the side but between the firing line and your back stop? Do all different calibers trigger it the same way? Iā€™d be out there testing like madā€¦but then again any excuse to shoot makes for a good day!

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Your sky unit is trying to tell you that it isnā€™t bulletproof. :wink:

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I would consider this expected behavior for an acoustic sensor. Are you wearing hearing protectors? Maybe your Sky needs them as wellā€¦ :wink:

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Recall that the Haptic Rain Sensor effectively measures vibration. The shock waves emitting from the rifle/gun barrel will impact upon the sensor even as a secondary wave- (passing around or reflected). The result is that the sensor sees this as ā€œrainā€.

When I first set my unit up I did so using a post a gate closes onto. The sensor is atop a 6m length of galvanise 1" water pipe. The pipe sways with low frequency in any wind. This does not impact upon the sensor. However if the gate is closed so it has medium contact with the post, the vibrations do impact on the sensor. The mounting of the pipe has been modified so that these vibrations are no longer transmitted. Recall that the vibrations travel with a speed relative to the density of the material, so in pipe that are much fast than in air, hence the attenuation over time/distance is much less.

I summary low frequency has no impact but higher frequency does. to prevent a problem you will need to protect the Sky unit from the shock waves - an interesting project

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what is interesting about this is, that it shows that the unit gives already at the very first drop a rain alarm. I wouldnā€™t mind if it only did that at the fifth drop or so (in a period of time), possibly reducing a lot of false rain alarms form birds (unless they are tap dancing on the sky) and other one or two shots events.

@dsj has commented here before about the rain alert. It is not the first drop. There is a defined formula and calculation.

I have never gone to a shooting range with only one ā€œdropā€ in the magazineā€¦

It takes a few shots in fairly quick succession before it alerts to rain.
Does it with .22, .556 and 7.62.

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You should have a railroad track near your SKY. I do! Whenever a train is passing by there is no ā€˜first drop rain alertā€™. Even for freight trains with two or three 220Ton engines rumbling by, with one to one hundred cars attached. So in my case, there is no vibration from the ground problem causing the myriad of false ā€˜Its rainingā€™ messages coming inā€¦ Took a while to pinpoint, it was the times when the train would blow its horns that startles the SKY into sending the Single ā€˜Its Rainingā€™ Phone alert outā€¦
Ben - WB2RHM