BORELLI CONSULTING: Tactical Equipment Reviews

Kestrel 2500 Handheld Weather Meter
By: Frank Borelli, 4 July 2005

So, you're planning that operation and you need up-to-date accurate weather information. Depending on what exactly you're planning and where you are, information such as altitude, temperature, wind speed and pressure trend might matter. Now, no, I don't see that kind of information being of importance to the police officer in his cruiser on a summer night. But for the soldiers preparing to jump out of a plane, that just might matter. For a leader who is planning an operation, environmental considerations should be taken into consideration.

I'm pretty spoiled. I've always depended on the television and internet for weather updates and forecasts. In the field, you can't do that. Even radios are sometimes spotty at best. What's the answer? A relatively inexpensive, handheld unit that measures all of those environmental items (and more) and displays them in an easy to understand manner. Kestrel Pocket Weather Meters perform varying tasks depending on how much information you need and how much you're willing to invest to get it.

The test and evaluatoin unit I received is the Kestrel 2500. Introduced in 2004, the 2500 provides ten different measurements to keep you informed of your surrounding conditions. Those ten measurements are:

1) Barometric Pressure
2) Pressure Trend
3) Altitude
4) Wind Chill
5) Air Temperature
6) Water Temperature
7) Snow Temperature
8) Current Wind Speed
9) Average Wind Speed
10) Maximum Wind Gust

Now if you look at those carefully you see that three of them are temperatures. It doesn't do them all at the same time obviously. However, the 2500's ability to go back and forth rapidly is pretty sweet. Just in my own yard and neighborhood, in a ten minute time frame, I was able to test air temperature, the water temperature in my pool, back to the air temperature, and then the water temperature in the Chesapeake Bay.

The funny thing is, no matter what paperwork says, I always feel apprehensive the first time I put an electronic device into the water (but I don't worry about my watches?). Here I was holding a Pocket Weather Meter that retails for about $200 and I was dangling it in the Bay by it's lanyard. I wasn't sure it would still work until I pulled it out and it still worked.

On my back deck, the wind (when I tested it) was a barely existent 1.7 mile per hour breeze. If I moved my hand around real fast (to me) I could get the 2500 to register up to a 7 mile per hour wind. Hmmm... how to get it faster? Holding it out the window of my Jeep as I drove back from the beach I found out that my speedometer and the Kestrel 2500 agreed that I was going between 25 and 30 miles per hour. Obviously I couldn't drive and look at both simultaneously (especially since I had to hold the 2500 out the window), but getting my speed between 25 and 30 and then glancing out the window at the 2500 I always saw a number between 27 and 29. I like when two different types of technology confirm each other.

Although my test unit didn't come with a user manual, it was easy enough to figure out. Turn it on... duh. Pushing the right arrow or left arrow scrolls you through the various pieces of information. Once you get familiar with the order they are in, it's easy enough to count your pushes and know where you're going to end up. Although it's not a weather measurement, the Kestrel 2500 also provides time in a twelve or twenty-four hour format.

Some of the other features of this unit are:
- it has a backlight
- it's waterproof (proven in testing) and it floats (found that out in my pool)
- hold function: you can make it stop measuring and show you a fixed readout on a given piece of data if you have to record it for some reason

I immediately saw several applicatons for this unit / or a similar type of device. It's certainly handy to have around if you're going to be doing anything outside where the weather can impact your plans such as:
Hiking
Camping
Fishing
Hunting
Boating

Those were the obvious ones to me because I participate in those activties. Another one of our staff writers, Chuck Bennett, saw other applications that included:
Sky Diving (go figure)
Hang Gliding
Racing (he has a motorcycle)
Aviation (he's a licensed pilot)

For those of you interested, the Kestrel Pocket Weather Meter comes in eight different models.

The Kestrel 1000 is a wind meter and nothing more. It measures Current, Maximum and Average wind speed. At a suggested retail price of $89 it's pretty handy.

The Kestrel 2000 adds temperature and wind chill to that and includes a backlit display. Suggested retail $119.

The Kestrel 3000, suggested retail of $179, adds Relative Humidity, Heat Stress Index and the Dewpoint Temperature. If you think about it, without the radar images you get on the evening weather report, the Kestrel 3000 gives you all the other info immediately available: temperature, humidity, wind speed, gusts, and the dewpoint. Not bad for a unit that you can drop in your pocket.

The Kestrel 3500 adds the wet bulb tempeature, barometric pressure, altitude, pressure trend and the clock. The Model 2500 that I had for testing lies in between the 3000 and the 3500 (don't ask me to explain how come the model numbers / features got mixed like that). The 2500 (unit I tested)does not have relative humidity, heat stress index, dewpoint temperature or wet bulb temperature. The suggested retail price for the 3500 jumps up to $249. I should mention that if you buy ten or more of a given model, the promotional material shows about a 15% discount.

The next three Kestrel models are unique: the Model 4100 is called an Air Flow Meter; while the Models 4000 and 4000NV are Weather Tracker units. Let's look at them:

The 4100 Pocket Air Flow Meter, suggested retail of $299: Provides all of the following data:
- Current Wind Speed
- Max Wind Gusts
- Average Wind Speed
- Air Flow
- Temperature
- Wind Chill
- Relative Humidity
- Heat Stress Index
- Dewpoint Temperature

It also has these features:
- Backlit display
- Data Storage and Charting
- Data Upload
- Clock

The 4000s do all of that plus they add in:
- We Bulb Temperature
- Altitude
- Barometric Pressure
- Density Altitude
- Pressure Trend
- Visable Red Backlight

I should mention that the 4000s are available in three different colors: Orange, Gray and OD Green. Care to guess why the 4000 was made available in OD Green? That's right - because the military requested it. Seems these units have already seen duty in Iraq and Afghanistan, most especially in the hands of engineers and snipers. The red backlight, versus the normal backlight, helps maintain night vision making it more suitable for that setting. Altitude, Density Altitude, Humidity, Wind Speed, Wind Gusts... all are bits of data that a sniper can make use of.

So, where do I stand on the Kestrel Pocket Weather Meters? I'm quite thankful the good folks over there gave me a shout. I had never heard of them even though they've apparently been all around me in the hands of various friends. I know this Model 2500 I received for T&E will certainly be going with me camping, hiking, boating, fishing...

For more information, check them out online at http://www.nkhome.com.

Also, don't forget to check out the new Recreational Equipment Evaluations:

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Plus others!!!

Don't forget to check out this week's Highlighted Training Article about Offduty and Backup weapons.

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