Outdoor weather station 801-48

Fischer has always been a training company for most of its long history. One project undertaken by the apprentices, who were called the Youth Brigade during the GDR era, was the 801 outdoor weather station. The design dates back to 1970: an employee who started as an apprentice then (and is now, after 47 years of work, in well-deserved retirement) still remembers its introduction shortly after he began his apprenticeship. One of the apprentices' tasks here was to phosphate the sheet metal in a specially equipped bath to make it resistant to corrosion. The experience of another former employee proves how well the process worked. When he recently dismantled his weather station from the wall of his house after more than 40 years, it was still in good condition. After the phosphate bath, the sheets were sprayed with a crimping varnish, which threw up its characteristic structure during baking. This baking is still done today, but the structure is created by hand, as employees sprinkle thicker paint on the surface with a paint spray gun - making each copy unique.

Exactly like the "historical" prototype is the type and arrangement of the measuring instruments. The main instrument of the 801 is an aneroid barometer with barometer pointer and setting pointer for trend observation. Below that is a so-called polymeter. It consists of a dial thermometer (left) and a hygrometer (right), whose specially treated human hair is insensitive to temperature and reacts quickly to changes in humidity. With the polymeter, however, not only temperature and humidity can be measured directly, but in addition important humidity measures such as the dew point can be determined.

Behind the dew point is the knowledge that air at a given temperature can only absorb a certain amount of moisture - if it is saturated, condensation occurs and dew forms. What sounds quite theoretical at first has a very immediate practical use: For example, the dew point can be used to estimate the risk of night frost in winter. If it is below 0 °C on a clear or slightly cloudy night, frost is imminent. It is also useful to know the dew point in summer: If the cellar temperature is close to the dew point temperature of the outside air, there is a risk of mold. Finally, to take seasonal aspects into account in the weather forecast, the outdoor weather station concludes at the bottom with a slanted panel explaining seasonal relationships between the air pressure and the weather outlook.

Fischer Feingerätebau GmbH, founded in 1945 by flight engineer Kurt Fischer in Drebach in the Erzgebirge - and in the meantime operating under the name VEB Feingerätebau Drebach - manufactures precise and solid measuring instruments for meteorology and climate observation, which are characterized by the best workmanship. The reliable devices are also precisely adjusted and tested.