Author Topic: Interference with Davis Vantage Vue  (Read 3785 times)

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Offline AVLNiner

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Interference with Davis Vantage Vue
« on: July 12, 2016, 09:29:38 AM »
I've had my Bloomsky up and running since this past Friday. I noticed that morning it didn't update from about 9:30am til 11:30am. Later that afternoon I noticed my weather data on Weather Underground from my Davis Vantage Vue reported some really funny data from 9:30am til 11:30am. When I got home I changed my channel on the Davis from 1 to 3 and unfortunately that hasn't helped. It causes my temperature and pressure obs to jump up and down and it doesn't even record my sustained wind. I called Bloomsky and the guy I spoke with said he had never ran into this issue from anyone, which really surprised me.

Has anybody ever had this problem and know anything I can do to get it resolved? I love what the Bloomsky has to offer but the data my Davis reports is most important to me.

Thanks!

Offline miraculon

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Re: Interference with Davis Vantage Vue
« Reply #1 on: July 12, 2016, 09:47:13 AM »
With the frequency hopping that the Davis uses, there shouldn't be "interference" signal-wise. Good packets should get through even if there are collisions with the BloomSky.

Does the Davis console show anything abnormal? You might try the diagnostics screens on the VUE invoked by a simultaneous press of TEMP and HUM buttons. (2nd - CHILL changes to the other diagnostics screen).

This is covered by the manual, but you want to look at the "percent good packets" and the chart at the lower left, especially during this problem period. If the chart shows that you never dropped out, it is not RF interference.

Greg H.


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Offline AVLNiner

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Re: Interference with Davis Vantage Vue
« Reply #2 on: July 12, 2016, 10:39:17 AM »
I haven't noticed anything unusual on the console for the Davis but I'll check out the charts to confirm. Thanks for the tip.

Offline VaJim

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Re: Interference with Davis Vantage Vue
« Reply #3 on: July 12, 2016, 02:44:20 PM »
Not sure the Davis or the Bloomsky are interfering with each other.

The Davis is broadcasting at 902 - 928 MHz.

the Bloomsky is using WIFI which is at 2.4 GHz


Offline miraculon

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Re: Interference with Davis Vantage Vue
« Reply #4 on: July 12, 2016, 05:55:57 PM »
Not sure the Davis or the Bloomsky are interfering with each other.

The Davis is broadcasting at 902 - 928 MHz.

the Bloomsky is using WIFI which is at 2.4 GHz

Good point. I didn't know the Bloomsky frequency range. Maybe it is something like microwave ovens, routers, other WiFi sources.

Greg H.



Blitzortung Stations #706 and #1682
CoCoRaHS: MI-PI-1
CWOP: CW4114 and KE8DAF-13
WU: KMIROGER7
Amateur Radio Callsign: KE8DAF

Offline Scalphunter

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Re: Interference with Davis Vantage Vue
« Reply #5 on: July 12, 2016, 06:58:16 PM »
Harmonics just might be tho. 2nd harmonic of 928 mhz is almost 1.9

John

Offline nincehelser

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Re: Interference with Davis Vantage Vue
« Reply #6 on: July 12, 2016, 09:42:28 PM »
I can't see the BloomSky being at fault.  It's just your typical wifi.

Davis is also frequency hopping around 900MHz, well below the wifi frequencies.

That band is shared with amateur radio operators.  Perhaps a local ham is operating nearby?

Offline miraculon

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Re: Interference with Davis Vantage Vue
« Reply #7 on: July 13, 2016, 08:25:20 AM »
Interference doesn't necessarily have to be in the 900MHz band. Strong out-of-band interference can desensitize the front end of the receiver. I just went through this with my Davis repeater setup. I had 750MHz and 850MHz signals causing interference. I put a BPF between the preamp (after my Yagi) and the Davis repeater input. I still get some in-band interference that is in the high end (maybe 920 MHz or so) that is broad-band. My good packets about 70% which I attribute to this interference. I isolated it with my RF Explorer and a small portable Yagi setup to the County building tower by walking around and getting strange looks and questions about what I was doing. It all seemed perfectly normal to me....

Greg H.


Blitzortung Stations #706 and #1682
CoCoRaHS: MI-PI-1
CWOP: CW4114 and KE8DAF-13
WU: KMIROGER7
Amateur Radio Callsign: KE8DAF

Offline Cutty Sark Sailor

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Re: Interference with Davis Vantage Vue
« Reply #8 on: July 13, 2016, 08:41:43 AM »
....walking around and getting strange looks and questions about what I was doing. It all seemed perfectly normal to me....

Greg H.

    =D>  ... Optimizing Blitzortung gave you that feeling of "normalcy"... :twisted:
Betcha many didn't ask, they just quietly eased out of sight, and peeped through window curtains... Last time I did a walkaround with meters, laptop, etc,  I was wearing a bright red CoCoRaHS Hurricane Tee shirt, with that black hurricane symbol on the back, ... you should have seen 'em run... and one of my Cop buddies eased by me in the patrol car, slowed down, and just shook his head and smiled... somebody had reported 'strange behavior'...  :twisted:
 


Offline AVLNiner

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Re: Interference with Davis Vantage Vue
« Reply #9 on: July 19, 2016, 09:36:10 AM »
So I've continued to try to diagnose the problem with no luck. I'll attach a screen shot of my weather data on Wunderground where my Davis reports. Notice the spikes in Temp, DP and Pressure that occur about 12:45-2pm and again 5:15-6:30pm. I've compared the time this happens between the Davis and Bloomsky and it really looks like the Bloomsky is reporting its obs in place of the Davis. This seems to only happen after the Bloomsky hasn't reported for an hour or two, and once it starts reporting again it backfills these bad obs. Notice also the Precip doesn't report at all during these bad obs, which makes sense as the Bloomsky cannot report Precip, but only detect it. Lastly, UV graphs show up (with really funny obs) on one of the apps I use on my phone. My Davis doesn't measure UV whereas the Bloomsky does.

Does this give anybody any more clues as to what's going on and how I can fix it?

Thanks!

Offline nincehelser

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Re: Interference with Davis Vantage Vue
« Reply #10 on: July 19, 2016, 09:54:11 AM »
Is it possible that your BloomSky is inadvertently reporting to the same wunderground station ID as your Davis?

If you have ever had your BloomSky reporting to wunderground, make sure you've got the reporting turned off, or at least confirm that it is reporting to a different station ID.
« Last Edit: July 19, 2016, 09:56:29 AM by nincehelser »

Offline AVLNiner

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Re: Interference with Davis Vantage Vue
« Reply #11 on: July 19, 2016, 10:04:53 AM »
Is it possible that your BloomSky is inadvertently reporting to the same wunderground station ID as your Davis?

If you have ever had your BloomSky reporting to wunderground, make sure you've got the reporting turned off, or at least confirm that it is reporting to a different station ID.

I actually did connect the webcam portion to wunderground on the Davis Station ID so I'll turn that option off and wait for it to go "Inactive" and retry the Bloomsky. Thanks!

Offline nincehelser

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Re: Interference with Davis Vantage Vue
« Reply #12 on: July 19, 2016, 10:50:12 AM »
Yeah.  When I set up my BloomSky on wunderground, the BloomSky server insisted that I associate my BloomSky with a wunderground ID, even though I was only interested in the webcam portion.  I eventually had to "park" the BloomSky on a station ID I use for experimentation.

If push comes to shove, you might have to create a new wunderground station ID just to give the BloomSky somewhere to send its data "safely".


Offline AVLNiner

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Re: Interference with Davis Vantage Vue
« Reply #13 on: July 19, 2016, 11:08:25 AM »
Yeah.  When I set up my BloomSky on wunderground, the BloomSky server insisted that I associate my BloomSky with a wunderground ID, even though I was only interested in the webcam portion.  I eventually had to "park" the BloomSky on a station ID I use for experimentation.

If push comes to shove, you might have to create a new wunderground station ID just to give the BloomSky somewhere to send its data "safely".

Thanks for the info! I don't mind using the Bloomsky App or website to view my webcam so I'll give it a shot first without going through wunderground at all. But if that doesn't work I'll create a new wunderground station ID and see if that will 'divert' it from my Davis station ID.

Offline nincehelser

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Re: Interference with Davis Vantage Vue
« Reply #14 on: July 19, 2016, 11:24:07 AM »
Yeah.  When I set up my BloomSky on wunderground, the BloomSky server insisted that I associate my BloomSky with a wunderground ID, even though I was only interested in the webcam portion.  I eventually had to "park" the BloomSky on a station ID I use for experimentation.

If push comes to shove, you might have to create a new wunderground station ID just to give the BloomSky somewhere to send its data "safely".

Thanks for the info! I don't mind using the Bloomsky App or website to view my webcam so I'll give it a shot first without going through wunderground at all. But if that doesn't work I'll create a new wunderground station ID and see if that will 'divert' it from my Davis station ID.

Keep in mind you need to tell the BloomSky servers where to send your data.  I think this is the URL for that: http://www.bloomsky.com/wu

Offline AVLNiner

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Re: Interference with Davis Vantage Vue
« Reply #15 on: July 19, 2016, 11:39:50 AM »
Yeah.  When I set up my BloomSky on wunderground, the BloomSky server insisted that I associate my BloomSky with a wunderground ID, even though I was only interested in the webcam portion.  I eventually had to "park" the BloomSky on a station ID I use for experimentation.

If push comes to shove, you might have to create a new wunderground station ID just to give the BloomSky somewhere to send its data "safely".

Thanks for the info! I don't mind using the Bloomsky App or website to view my webcam so I'll give it a shot first without going through wunderground at all. But if that doesn't work I'll create a new wunderground station ID and see if that will 'divert' it from my Davis station ID.

Keep in mind you need to tell the BloomSky servers where to send your data.  I think this is the URL for that: http://www.bloomsky.com/wu

That's the site I used to connect the webcam. When I click it now it has my Davis Station ID and "Success" for PWS Upload. Then it has the Webcam ID I used to connect the Bloomsky and "Success" for Webcam Upload. Do you think I need to just go ahead and create a new Station ID?

Offline nincehelser

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Re: Interference with Davis Vantage Vue
« Reply #16 on: July 19, 2016, 11:54:02 AM »
That's the site I used to connect the webcam. When I click it now it has my Davis Station ID and "Success" for PWS Upload. Then it has the Webcam ID I used to connect the Bloomsky and "Success" for Webcam Upload. Do you think I need to just go ahead and create a new Station ID?

Try un-checking the station ID and then click "save" again.  Maybe that will disassociate the your Davis station ID, yet leave the webcam intact.  It seems like that's the way it should work.

If that doesn't seem to work, creating a new station ID for your BloomSky would definitely clear things up.


Offline SpringHillWeather

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Re: Interference with Davis Vantage Vue
« Reply #17 on: July 19, 2016, 12:18:14 PM »
That's the site I used to connect the webcam. When I click it now it has my Davis Station ID and "Success" for PWS Upload. Then it has the Webcam ID I used to connect the Bloomsky and "Success" for Webcam Upload. Do you think I need to just go ahead and create a new Station ID?

Try un-checking the station ID and then click "save" again.  Maybe that will disassociate the your Davis station ID, yet leave the webcam intact.  It seems like that's the way it should work.

If that doesn't seem to work, creating a new station ID for your BloomSky would definitely clear things up.

Nincehelser is correct.  You need to have the Bloomsky station pointing to its own station or you can see the data on your other station.  I had the same problem when adding a replacement.  However you can add the Bloomsky webcam to multiple WU stations.  I have my Bloomsky CAM pointing to 2 other stations besides the BloomSky. 
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Offline AVLNiner

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Re: Interference with Davis Vantage Vue
« Reply #18 on: July 19, 2016, 12:25:19 PM »
That's the site I used to connect the webcam. When I click it now it has my Davis Station ID and "Success" for PWS Upload. Then it has the Webcam ID I used to connect the Bloomsky and "Success" for Webcam Upload. Do you think I need to just go ahead and create a new Station ID?

Try un-checking the station ID and then click "save" again.  Maybe that will disassociate the your Davis station ID, yet leave the webcam intact.  It seems like that's the way it should work.

If that doesn't seem to work, creating a new station ID for your BloomSky would definitely clear things up.

Nincehelser is correct.  You need to have the Bloomsky station pointing to its own station or you can see the data on your other station.  I had the same problem when adding a replacement.  However you can add the Bloomsky webcam to multiple WU stations.  I have my Bloomsky CAM pointing to 2 other stations besides the BloomSky.

Awesome, thanks guys, this sounds hopeful! I did go into Webcam settings last week and disassociate the webcam with my Davis Station ID, but sounds like I needed to make the update on the http://www.bloomsky.com/wu site as well.  Also good to know about pointing the Bloomsky to multiple stations. I'll leave the webcam portion only checked for my Davis station ID, but also create a new station ID so I can see all its data as well. 

Offline AVLNiner

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Re: Interference with Davis Vantage Vue
« Reply #19 on: July 20, 2016, 08:57:51 AM »
I created a new station ID for the Bloomsky yesterday and got it online around 5pm. That definitely looks like it should fix my issue as I haven't went this long without a problem since I bought the BS. Thanks again for the help guys!

Devin

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Re: Interference with Davis Vantage Vue
« Reply #20 on: July 21, 2016, 12:57:11 PM »
Good news!
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