Topic: WMR100 can't find wind sensor

[ron.p]

Hello.  I've had a WMR100 running for a couple of years without issue.  I have my wind sensor set up on a pole on the roof of the house and went up today to change the batteries before winter sets in.  The wind sensor was registered with the base station just fine before I changed the batteries.  I changed them and hit the reset button.  The base station is not picking up the wind sensor now.  I double checked the batteries are in right, I redid the search from the base station, I reset the base station, hit the reset on the wind sensor again, tried new batteries, all to no avail.  I did the rain gauge too, not issue picking that up.  I have the wind senor off the roof and in the house now close to the base station, still not picking it up.  Any ideas or suggestions would be appreciated.  Thanks.

[karona]

There's a red LED on the wind sensor that flashes when it's sending data, every few seconds. Make sure it's flashing. If not you could have a duff set of batteries, the connections in the battery compartment may need cleaning, or you may have the batteries the wrong way round. The sensors must be reset in a specific order. Try another set of batteries (even the ones from the console for now), double checking alignment, then point the direction sensor at the 'North' marking on the sensor body, then press 'reset', making sure you feel the button click. Then reset the console. By the time you've set the time, date and altitude on the console it should have picked up external temp, humidity and wind data, if the LED is flashing.

[gadget_guy]

My experience with the WMR100 and the Oregon sensors in general indicate that signal strength is very weak.  I found that moving the console inches could make the difference between communication and no communications.  I finally decided that a better antenna on the console was the answer.  I replaced the internal antenna with an external antenna and have had rock solid communications ever since.  There is a thread I started under Oregon Scientific that shows how to open up the console and how to replace the antennas.  some have had luck with a passive external antenna by placing a wire alongside the case where the internal antenna is located, using a piece of foil, etc.  I found that a proper sized external antenna gave me the best results.  Your mileage may vary, but it's at least worth considering.

[ron.p]

Terminal ends pretty bad off, scraped them and verified the batteries, no red light.  It was working before I touched it!  Will try additional cleaning later, thanks for the tips.  You think it's worth it to just change that unit out?  Everything else seems to work fine.

[Scalphunter]

 Getan 200 if you can afford it and then use the 100 console to monitor  from another room or workshop.

 John

[gadget_guy]

That's what I did.  I found a WMR200 at a very good price on eBay.  Keep looking there they do turn up.  Even then I found that reliability was improved with an external antenna.  Because I'm not always at my Massanutten site and I really need to know what is going on there, I have one laptop running VWS using the WMR200 and one using WUHU and the WMR100.  Each as a different webcam attached.  With that setup mostly the weather station stays alive.

I do note that the WMR100 tends to lose connection with the PC USB Port while I never had that problem with the WMR200.  I also have to replace the laptops because in the event of a major power outage, you have to be on-site to power them back up.  Neither supports boot on power.

It's never easy

[dimag05]

I had all sorts of trouble with my WMR100, similar to what you're describing. I scoured this forum and other sources of info, trying to find a solution, but to no avail. I finally gave up and returned it to OS. They were good enough to credit me my full purchase price towards a WMR200, which has been trouble free since last spring.