I use a cheapie - about $119 for the last one I bought. The most common problem I have found is the rain tippler gets tied up with spider webs (it must annoy them
) and the wind direction bearings foul up with moss or some similar green growing stuff. Its about an annual to 18 month job for me to do a bit of maintenance and either swap or clean the wind direction gauge, the anemometer and clean and spray the rain tipler with surface spray.
I've have one remote transmitter fail, and one base station screen fail, but I have enough parts between the 2 that I've bought to swap them out and service and repair, etc.
There's a lot of good info here:
http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/s...eather+station
Al.