Author Topic: New Atlas - Crazy inacurate Wind speeds  (Read 2256 times)

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Offline mcvoss

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New Atlas - Crazy inacurate Wind speeds
« on: October 06, 2018, 11:37:59 AM »
Good morning,

I received a New Atlas 3 days ago to replace my 5n1, which has worked flawlessly for 3 years. I put new batteries in the Atlas and mounted it on the same stable pole mt 5n1 was on. I am having 2 issues. Once or twice a day I will get crazy wind speed readings from both the access and monitor. Yesterday was 76mph and today, so far, my highest wind speed was 138mph. Theres no Hurricane going on at the moment. Any suggestions?

The other issue is I put my monitor in the same spot that my 5n1 monitor used to be in but it will drop the Atlas signal and unless I change the monitor location it wont reconnect. It appears the range was not as good as my 5n1.

Any suggestions?

Thanks

Offline DoctorKnow

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Re: New Atlas - Crazy inacurate Wind speeds
« Reply #1 on: October 06, 2018, 12:37:46 PM »
Is your anemometer turning smoothly? Mine wasn't reading right when I first installed it, yet it was turning, and support had me to grab the anemometer part and push it down hard, not by the wind spoons, but by the center.

Offline davefr

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Re: New Atlas - Crazy inacurate Wind speeds
« Reply #2 on: October 06, 2018, 02:16:28 PM »

The other issue is I put my monitor in the same spot that my 5n1 monitor used to be in but it will drop the Atlas signal and unless I change the monitor location it wont reconnect. It appears the range was not as good as my 5n1.

Any suggestions?

Thanks

I had the same problem but with the connection to the Access hub.  I'm curious how far your sensor is to your console?

Offline mcvoss

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Re: New Atlas - Crazy inacurate Wind speeds
« Reply #3 on: October 06, 2018, 03:17:18 PM »
Doctor,

Thanks for the advice. I pressed down on the center of the anemometer and I heard a snap. Hopefully that was it, or I broke it :)

Dave,

My access is 50' and the display is 88' from the Atlas. I had the Atlas on CH A so while I was up there I switched it to C just to see if that helps. I'll post back.

Thank you guys for the replies.

Offline DoctorKnow

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Re: New Atlas - Crazy inacurate Wind speeds
« Reply #4 on: October 06, 2018, 07:32:10 PM »
Is the anemometer fixed? I doubt you broke it, sounds like it wasn't on right.

Offline mcvoss

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Re: New Atlas - Crazy inacurate Wind speeds
« Reply #5 on: October 06, 2018, 11:29:44 PM »
No, 90 mph registered at 9pm.

Offline nincehelser

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Re: New Atlas - Crazy inacurate Wind speeds
« Reply #6 on: October 06, 2018, 11:58:22 PM »
It's a longshot, but check that the batteries are good and seated properly, and that the red LED transmitter light is blinking steadily every 10 seconds.

Otherwise, I'd contact Acurite. 

To speed things along, tell them you've tried fresh name-brand batteries (e.g. Duracell) and that hasn't helped.  That should speed you through the first part of their debugging script.

I've been trying to disassemble the anemometer section of my beta unit tonight to see how it works, but I haven't figured how to do that without being destructive.

Offline Carey Conlee

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Re: New Atlas - Crazy inacurate Wind speeds
« Reply #7 on: August 15, 2019, 10:47:59 AM »
Having a heck of a time trying to find a good location for my access. Going thru a metal building is a nightmare for the Atlas. Move the access a few inches and blue turns to blinking red.

 Looks like wind speed is the first to go when you have a lot of interference. Currently 250mph wind gusts outside. Off just a little bit. Watch those umbrellas.

Every other reading stays good just from mid morning to late afternoon the wind goes crazy

Offline galfert

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Re: New Atlas - Crazy inacurate Wind speeds
« Reply #8 on: August 15, 2019, 11:17:54 AM »
With this strange wind issue and the other mysterious rain issue it seems to me like the Atlas sends data via RF without a CRC check byte to confirm the data is good. I'm not certain if other manufacturers employ a CRC but this does not look good for Acurite. I've not heard of these sorts of issues with other manufacturers.

It probably is not an issue for most with a good signal. But a poor signal should result in no data, not wrong data.
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Offline nincehelser

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Re: New Atlas - Crazy inacurate Wind speeds
« Reply #9 on: August 15, 2019, 11:21:38 AM »
With this strange wind issue and the other mysterious rain issue it seems to me like the Atlas sends data via RF without a CRC check byte to confirm the data is good. I'm not certain if other manufacturers employ a CRC but this does not look good for Acurite. I've not heard of these sorts of issues with other manufacturers.

It probably is not an issue for most with a good signal. But a poor signal should result in no data, not wrong data.

Not true.

Offline waiukuweather

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Re: New Atlas - Crazy inacurate Wind speeds
« Reply #10 on: August 15, 2019, 01:38:06 PM »
what part is not true?

Offline nincehelser

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Re: New Atlas - Crazy inacurate Wind speeds
« Reply #11 on: August 15, 2019, 01:55:10 PM »
what part is not true?

The data sent has checks and is sent multiple times for redundancy.

Offline galfert

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Re: New Atlas - Crazy inacurate Wind speeds
« Reply #12 on: August 15, 2019, 02:26:47 PM »
If there is CRC for the data then perhaps the errors are buffer overrun or such related. Well it does no good for us to speculate. Still at this point in the product cycle it is very odd.
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Offline nincehelser

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Re: New Atlas - Crazy inacurate Wind speeds
« Reply #13 on: August 15, 2019, 02:48:22 PM »
If there is CRC for the data then perhaps the errors are buffer overrun or such related. Well it does no good for us to speculate. Still at this point in the product cycle it is very odd.

No to a CRC buffer overrun.

Yes to random speculation.

It also has nothing to do with "this point in the product cycle".

Also, the rain issue a few are having with the Access is not an error coming from the Atlas.  If it was a problem on the Atlas, then it would also show on the display.
« Last Edit: August 15, 2019, 02:52:47 PM by nincehelser »

Offline nincehelser

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Re: New Atlas - Crazy inacurate Wind speeds
« Reply #14 on: August 15, 2019, 02:55:40 PM »
Having a heck of a time trying to find a good location for my access. Going thru a metal building is a nightmare for the Atlas. Move the access a few inches and blue turns to blinking red.

Yes.  Going through metal is a problem for radio.  Your best bet is to get a clear line-of-site through a window or translucent panel.

Offline Neil_O

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Re: New Atlas - Crazy inacurate Wind speeds
« Reply #15 on: August 16, 2019, 08:42:55 AM »
Regarding your second point about signal drop from the Atlas to the display, I have found that folding the antenna back to its closed position (against the top of the display) has nearly eliminated signal drop issues.  Someone made this suggestion in an earlier thread.  I was having the same problem as you, but since I've folded the antenna back to the closed position, things have improved significantly.  I can't explain why this might help, but it did in my case.
Good morning,

I received a New Atlas 3 days ago to replace my 5n1, which has worked flawlessly for 3 years. I put new batteries in the Atlas and mounted it on the same stable pole mt 5n1 was on. I am having 2 issues. Once or twice a day I will get crazy wind speed readings from both the access and monitor. Yesterday was 76mph and today, so far, my highest wind speed was 138mph. Theres no Hurricane going on at the moment. Any suggestions?

The other issue is I put my monitor in the same spot that my 5n1 monitor used to be in but it will drop the Atlas signal and unless I change the monitor location it wont reconnect. It appears the range was not as good as my 5n1.

Any suggestions?

Thanks

Offline waiukuweather

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Re: New Atlas - Crazy inacurate Wind speeds
« Reply #16 on: August 16, 2019, 02:26:55 PM »
that means there cant be very good crc error checking despite what has been posted here?

Offline nincehelser

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Re: New Atlas - Crazy inacurate Wind speeds
« Reply #17 on: August 16, 2019, 04:02:53 PM »
that means there cant be very good crc error checking despite what has been posted here?

No.  There are checksums on the packets and parity all the way down to the individual data elements.

Offline galfert

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Re: New Atlas - Crazy inacurate Wind speeds
« Reply #18 on: August 16, 2019, 06:14:48 PM »
Checksum parity is a very weak error correction method. Technically the parity checksum is CRC...but it is a 1 bit CRC and not what most mean when they say CRC. Typically when referring to CRC error correction it is a 32 bit check.
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Offline nincehelser

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Re: New Atlas - Crazy inacurate Wind speeds
« Reply #19 on: August 16, 2019, 07:21:31 PM »
Checksum parity is a very weak error correction method. Technically the parity checksum is CRC...but it is a 1 bit CRC and not what most mean when they say CRC. Typically when referring to CRC error correction it is a 32 bit check.

I didn't say "checksum parity".

CRC is particular type of checksum.  Parity is implemented at the data element level (i.e. byte level), as I said.

Done with this.






Offline galfert

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Re: New Atlas - Crazy inacurate Wind speeds
« Reply #20 on: August 16, 2019, 07:25:43 PM »
Sorry to hear you are done with this. I was going to ask you how you know all this is the implementation used by Acurite? Is that documented somewhere?
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Offline Theo

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Re: New Atlas - Crazy inacurate Wind speeds
« Reply #21 on: August 16, 2019, 08:37:46 PM »
Sorry to hear you are done with this. I was going to ask you how you know all this is the implementation used by Acurite? Is that documented somewhere?

Heh, I was going to ask the same exact thing, since the SDR group just started mapping the atlas data and the atlas folks have published zero information about their protocol.  I think there is a lot of assuming all the way around here.  :)

Offline nincehelser

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Re: New Atlas - Crazy inacurate Wind speeds
« Reply #22 on: August 16, 2019, 08:54:56 PM »
Sorry to hear you are done with this. I was going to ask you how you know all this is the implementation used by Acurite? Is that documented somewhere?

Heh, I was going to ask the same exact thing, since the SDR group just started mapping the atlas data and the atlas folks have published zero information about their protocol.  I think there is a lot of assuming all the way around here.  :)

Actually some of us have been looking at it the past couple years.

Don't expect Acurite to publish publicly on it.


« Last Edit: August 16, 2019, 09:01:20 PM by nincehelser »

Offline Carey Conlee

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Re: New Atlas - Crazy inacurate Wind speeds
« Reply #23 on: August 22, 2019, 01:08:36 PM »
Changed my batteries from Duracells to Lithium and my wind speeds so far are normal. I hope that was my problem.