Author Topic: Another Blitzortung Build  (Read 3835 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Offline sbuckler

  • Senior Member
  • **
  • Posts: 92
    • Harwich, MA Weather
Another Blitzortung Build
« on: May 22, 2013, 09:15:12 AM »
After reading "miraculon's thread http://www.wxforum.net/index.php?topic=18743.25, I decided to try my hand at a build.  I'm posting this, not to take away from miraculon's informative post, but to revive the subject in the hopes that it may help to recruit a new user or users to increase the coverage of North America.  Building the system was a lot of fun and the results, at least to me, have been astonishing.  Once I tweaked the gain, I recorded a lightning strike over 2500 miles away.  Further tweaking in the works ;)

Construction of the boards took about 20 hours.  My build is very much the same as miraculon's (why reinvent the wheel) with the exception of the gps (see attached images).  I happened to have an old Sirius satellite antenna from one of my former boats and modified it to accept the gps receiver.

I cannot thank miraculon enough for his assistance with my build.  The sharing of his knowledge helped me through my self-inflicted problems.

New lightning pages can seen at harwichweather.com under Lightning Detection.


The controller is installed in a closet in my basement workshop.  The GPS is located outside the walk-out basement on a west wall and connected to the controller with approximately 25' of CAT-5.

The antenna/amplifier is located in my second floor office, also on the west wall.  It is connected to the controller with a 50' STP cable with shielded connectors.









My thanks again to miraculon.

Stan

Offline miraculon

  • Sunrise Side Weather
  • Forecaster
  • *****
  • Posts: 4107
  • KE8DAF
    • Sunrise Side Weather in Rogers City MI USA
Re: Another Blitzortung Build
« Reply #1 on: May 22, 2013, 09:31:42 AM »
Congrats to Stan on getting his system up and working. The Blitzortung network is in need of more stations in the US, especially west of the Mississippi. If you are handy at building electronic kits and doing some light fabrication this is a good project and it would help expand the network if you participated.

Greg H "aka miraculon"



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

Offline Weather Spares

  • Forecaster
  • *****
  • Posts: 306
    • Weather Spares
Re: Another Blitzortung Build
« Reply #2 on: May 26, 2013, 05:51:31 PM »
Great to see.

It's inspired me to make the purchase - shame I will only be adding to the UK coverage :(
Weather Spares - your one stop shop for complete stations, accessories and spare parts for Davis Instruments, Ecowitt, Oregon Scientific, TFA, Ventus, GARNI and many more - https://www.weatherspares.co.uk/ offering global shipping of products.

Davis Vantage Pro 2 plus 24 hour FARS, Meteobridge NANO SD data logger, Davis AirLink, remote Davis anemometer rooftop mounted.
Location 95m altitude, West of Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, UK.


Offline sbuckler

  • Senior Member
  • **
  • Posts: 92
    • Harwich, MA Weather
Re: Another Blitzortung Build
« Reply #3 on: May 27, 2013, 06:05:24 AM »
Best of luck with your build and have fun!
Stan