Topic: Vantage Pro2 Console Freezing At Midnight

[Naby]

Twice now my Vantage Pro2 console has frozen seemingly at midnight. If you just glance at it you'd think nothing was wrong because all seems fine. When I looked at it this morning and noticed that the outside temperature was 66 F and I knew something was wrong, we're really right at 50. I unplugged it and took the batteries out and put them back in and it is working fine now. Looking at the data on WU it seems to record data fine right up until midnight. After midnight the recorded data is incorrect. For instance right before midnight the temperature was 47.2 and falling. Right after midnight it is 70.

This is the second time this has happened. Has anybody else experienced this? Is there anything I can do to resolve it?

Regards,
Chris

[ValentineWeather]

I've lost communication before with ISS but not midnight as you described, mine is usually early morning when it happens and console dashes out, so it's not frozen just communication loss.

[miraculon]

The local Marina has a WLIP that collects and uploads the data to Davis. Back in October, it stopped sending data at 11:59 PM Saturday, Oct 27, 2018.

https://www.weatherlink.com/embeddablePage/show/372a56e9f20d41bab0877649cb397b2b/wide

The Harbormaster is a seasonal employee and the office over there was closed for the season. Consequently I can't get to the console to do the old "power disconnected, batteries out" routine to get it going again.

I have a highly modified long range repeater with a high-gain antenna, preamplifier and band-pass filter that I get the data directly from the ISS, so I know that it is OK. Every other time the uploads have stopped, the console display was actually OK and only the upload to weatherlink.com was affected.

http://rogerscityweather.com/marinavue/marina.html

So this might be a different problem than what you are seeing, since in previous incidents the local console display was OK. Clearly our problem here is not ISS related since my repeater picks up the data just fine.

Greg H.

[Naby]

Thanks for the replies. To me it's not a coincidence that it is happening at midnight. The best I can tell it's the console and nothing else. I get an error when I don't receive data from outside and I get an error when WeatherCat doesn't get data from the console. So the console is still sending data, just the same data over and over again. ANd for some reason this happen right at midnight.

Chris

[mcrossley]

Your software isn't setting the console clock at midnight is it?

[Naby]

Your software isn't setting the console clock at midnight is it?

That's possible. I think it does set the time. I'll have to look in to that.

[Naby]

It happened again. The problem began at midnight between the 7th and 8th except this time I didn't notice at all. This time it corrected itself at midnight between the 8th and 9th!

I'm going to try the WeatherCat forum to see what I can find out there.

[miraculon]

Have you tried removing the weatherlink interface dongle and letting the console run by itself? No computer connection at all.

It might be an interesting thing to try. Just remember, full power off before you pull the interface out. (battery and power supply)

If the problem stops, then the suspicions are on the interface/computer side.

Other potential ideas:

   Another Davis (VUE  or VP2) nearby. (not sure what the midnight connection might be)

   Interference where there is some RF transmission at midnight.

Greg H.

[Naby]

Have you tried removing the weatherlink interface dongle and letting the console run by itself? No computer connection at all.

It might be an interesting thing to try. Just remember, full power off before you pull the interface out. (battery and power supply)

If the problem stops, then the suspicions are on the interface/computer side.

Other potential ideas:

   Another Davis (VUE  or VP2) nearby. (not sure what the midnight connection might be)

   Interference where there is some RF transmission at midnight.

Greg H.

It is another station nearby...My own station!

My dad gave me an older Vantage Vue for Thanksgiving. I've had it sitting in the garage. I'm not sure why it happens at midnight but they must be on the same channel. I posted this issue on the WxCat forum and somebody there pointed this out to me.

Thank you for the help!

Chris