Topic: WMR 200 // Problems with receiving signals from wind sensor

[gdfde]

Hello,

i have the windsensor on the roof of my house (2 floors).
The base unit is in the 1st floor and i can hardly receive the signals from the roof.

Has somebody already tried to replace the antenna against a better one?
Has somebody already succeeded to open the base station? I am not able to find any screws.

[killwilly]

Hello,

i have the windsensor on the roof of my house (2 floors).
The base unit is in the 1st floor and i can hardly receive the signals from the roof.

Has somebody already tried to replace the antenna against a better one?
Has somebody already succeeded to open the base station? I am not able to find any screws.

I had a similar problem with mine. Get a piece of 1.5 mm copper wire approx 400mm long, give it half a dozen turns around the antenna and then let the remainder extend upwards. Turn the last 10mm into a loop to prevent injury, could easily poke out your eye. 
It works fine now, never looses a signal.

I wouldn't recommend taking the console apart

Alan

[gdfde]

Thank you Alan for your tipp, i will try out, if it improves something.

I have recognized, that the loss of signal is much higher, when the USB cable is plugged in and connected to the sheeva plug.
With a better isolated USB cable, the loss is lower, but still more than without any USB cable.

[killwilly]

By the way,welcome to the forum. 

Another thing I found improved reception was, move the console as far away from your computer as possible, to a window sill if possible.

Alan.

[stevebrtx]

I spent nearly a week and a half moving things around until everything worked, the 200 is much more finicky than the 100 about receiving and being in the proximity of other wireless equip. I still fighting some sort of corruption of the daily files and am currently trying FlingFTP to see if that's a solution, although it has it's own annoying quirks.

[stevebrtx]

Add this to the heaping helping of heartburn. I decided to buy a replacement sensor from Oregon Scientific and add a UV sensor and ship them to Canada for a friend to return to me after Christmas. I wanted some assurance on the $40 shipping for two small items to Canada and also to ask if the temp sensor was in stock - well, a big "duh" on me I guess, I can't find any contact telephone number on the OS website, not for sales, corp sales, support?, CS etc. I might have missed it, so if anyone has the magic number wherever they are, I'd appreciate it.

Apparently I have "el dumbo" stamped on my forehead, I've spent $300 for a station that is something less than I had expected (and continues to corrupt data) I'm was willing to spend another $130 in sensors and shipping and OS doesn't have the courtesy to have a phone that even allows "press 1 for - - -". I'd say this $130 just went into the saving-up-for-Davis fund.

[gdfde]

I had a similar problem with mine. Get a piece of 1.5 mm copper wire approx 400mm long, give it half a dozen turns around the antenna and then let the remainder extend upwards. Turn the last 10mm into a loop to prevent injury, could easily poke out your eye. 
It works fine now, never looses a signal.

Well, behaviour has improved with the copper wire, thank you
I am still losing some data, but itīs much better than before.
I have anyway ordered the rfxcom receiver, which has better receiver performance and will use the base station without any data logging in the future (therefore the USB cable is not need, which should also improves the signal loss).

[gdfde]

Add this to the heaping helping of heartburn. I decided to buy a replacement sensor from Oregon Scientific and add a UV sensor and ship them to Canada for a friend to return to me after Christmas. I wanted some assurance on the $40 shipping for two small items to Canada and also to ask if the temp sensor was in stock - well, a big "duh" on me I guess, I can't find any contact telephone number on the OS website, not for sales, corp sales, support?, CS etc. I might have missed it, so if anyone has the magic number wherever they are, I'd appreciate it.

Apparently I have "el dumbo" stamped on my forehead, I've spent $300 for a station that is something less than I had expected (and continues to corrupt data) I'm was willing to spend another $130 in sensors and shipping and OS doesn't have the courtesy to have a phone that even allows "press 1 for - - -". I'd say this $130 just went into the saving-up-for-Davis fund.

Why dont you purchase it from a canadian onlineshop, i.e. weathershack.com ?
They deliver free of charge even to canada.

[stevebrtx]

Thanks for that info, I was unaware of them. However I took the 200 supplied sensor offline and replaced it with a stand alone THGR800 and may stick with that and scrap the UV idea. I did call the Calif store and got a customer "service" number at OS, tried twice, on hold 30 minutes each time with no answer, so guess that pretty much ends my love affair with them. I'm old fashioned I still believe people should work for my business.

[killwilly]

Thanks for that info, I was unaware of them. However I took the 200 supplied sensor offline and replaced it with a stand alone THGR800 and may stick with that and scrap the UV idea. I did call the Calif store and got a customer "service" number at OS, tried twice, on hold 30 minutes each time with no answer, so guess that pretty much ends my love affair with them. I'm old fashioned I still believe people should work for my business.

The cost of thirty minutes on the telephone here in the UK would buy you a new sensor! 

Alan

[stevebrtx]

Well, we have several ways of getting calls out of MX at a reasonable cost. I have Vonage at $27 a month with unlimited LD to the US and some other places, Skype at 2 cents per minute and Telmex my new ISP is feeling the competition pinch and so for $600MXP (about $46USD) I get 2MB DSL, local phone, unlimited LD in MX and 100 minutes to the States. It's just a built in cost for gringos to live here. The nice thing about Vonage is that I kept my same phone number I had for 20 years in TX and my friends and neighbors in Austin still call me like I was still next door. Also has a bonus, it totally screws with telemarketers, they don't call much anymore, I think there must be an industry "don't call because he's in MX list" but if they do I get all excited about what they're selling and ask if they deliver and install and when they say yes, I say "great, you'll find me 700 miles S of Laredo, TX in the mountains of central MX, when can you be here? - it usually gets quiet at that point and they don't call back.