DEVELOPMENT OF A RAIN GAUGE WITH ENHANCED ACCURACY AND HIGH RAPIDITY WITH NUMERICAL INDICATION OF RAIN RATE TIME DEPENDENCY

Abstract

Heavy rains considerably attenuate radio signals transmitted by modern millimetre wave high-speed communication lines. Therefore, this interference in the form of fast and deep changes of rain rates demands further investigations. Industrially manufactured rain gauges are not suitable for these investigations because of their inertia and insufficient precision of measurements. In this connection in this work the tipping-bucket rain gauge, has been modified and made. As a result the precision has lightly improved but the rapidity – more than in ten times (up to a few seconds in heavy rains) owing to considerable diminishing the cuvette size and weight and also due to configuration which removed drop adhesivity on its surface. The inclusion of an inexpensive microcontroller into the gauge composition also increased its precision and provided a better display of rain rate values on a built-in monitor and interface to a computer for registration.

Keywords

• rain intensity
• shuttle rain gauge