Author Topic: Suggestions for unattended Davis VP2 during off-season  (Read 590 times)

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Offline miraculon

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Suggestions for unattended Davis VP2 during off-season
« on: January 14, 2019, 08:51:51 AM »
As I have posted previously, I help the local Harbormaster with the Marina's Davis VP2 station. This is a bare-bones 6152. There is a Weatherlink IP interfaced to the console.

Periodically (at least once a year) the feed to Weatherlink.com stops. When the Marina is open or I can get the Harbormaster to meet me there, I have been able to get things running again with the standard full power-down of the console. Each time, the console itself continued to display good data.

I have a highly modified long-range repeater with 17dBi antenna, preamp and band-pass filter where I can receive the ISS directly. I post this data on my own website. (yes, I have permission). This is a good back-up to the WLIP. I got the Harbormaster's permission to upload data to CWOP and WU from this setup, albeit with missing baro data.

The Harbormaster is a seasonal employee and the weather here in Northern Michigan isn't conductive to accessing the Marina office during the winter at any rate.

I have been considering whether there is a more reliable way to have the data fed to Weatherlink.com.

Here are the options that I have been thinking about:

1. Ask the Harbormaster if I can remove the WLIP and install it in my own console. Thus, I would report the data to Weatherlink directly from my place using my own console via the repeater. The repeater is very reliable (after a lot of effort!) and this would be workable. I am using a VUE console that has a bad barometer. (actually very bad, since I disabled it by desoldering/scraping it off the PCB). I would probably have to replace this with a fully functional unit. (most likely at my own expense)

2. Replace the WLIP with a meteobridge Nano at the Marina's VP2 console. I don't know if this would be more reliable than the WLIP. I also don't know if the cause of the problem is systematic to the console/dongle interface and the potential would still exist. I'd hate to go through all that only to find that the situation wasn't remedied.

I also don't know if the problem is due to something like a DHCP lease expiration, or similar router related issue over at the Marina.

I appreciate any suggestions. I am leaning towards the first option, but since this is City property I might not be able to do this.

Greg H.





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Offline miraculon

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Re: Suggestions for unattended Davis VP2 during off-season <SOLVED>
« Reply #1 on: March 25, 2019, 08:33:53 AM »
Once I got access to the office where the VP2 console/WLIP is, I found that someone had drilled a hole in the drywall and hit the Ethernet cable, thus damaging it.

Once I replaced the cable, I still had some trouble. During this long disconnection, I believe that another device took the WLIP's fixed 192.168.0.100 IP address and there was a conflict. (always causes strange problems).

Once I got access for long enough to the configuration page, I set WLIP to use DHCP. It pulled 192.016.0.101. This solved the problem completely and it is now working fine.

Greg H.


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

Offline txweather.org

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Re: Suggestions for unattended Davis VP2 during off-season
« Reply #2 on: March 25, 2019, 08:57:54 AM »
Some ideas...

Put your equipment on a remote addressable power source that you can bounce (Restart) remotely.
This is more of a work around than a solution... ..... Cheaper than the Meteobridge Nano route for sure.

Now your issue seems to be isolated as many people with WLIP do not have this issues so I think we fall back to a problem at the Marina's service.

Option two seems the best way to go but than again it could be their system... If you can gain access to the router logs you can see if the weatherlink is failing to send a dhcp req or is it the service....
You can also have a monitor set to their external IP and monitor for downtime...

With all that said... I found several issues with weatherlink firmwares....

https://www.davisinstruments.com/support/weatherlinkip-data-logger-firmware/

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Offline chief-david

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Re: Suggestions for unattended Davis VP2 during off-season
« Reply #3 on: March 25, 2019, 09:31:14 AM »
If you do not need to unplug, or plug in anything--just do software changes and reconnections-Teamviewer is great and free for less than 5 computers.

I have it on my school computer and can usually access it. Works great even though I am 3 miles from school. I did fix an issue from Long Beach, CA while on Spring Break.

You could even set it up to autologin with windows. Do a shut down, log into TV then start up your computer. Options.
« Last Edit: March 25, 2019, 09:33:20 AM by chief-david »



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