Noise Sensors. HOA's will LOVE those!
Lightning sensors are interesting (and there is one in the pipeline for Ecowitt which I am watching with great interest!) but the older ones seem to have a lot of false positives, and from what I heard triggered them, I figure if I get on HF with even 100 watts I'd be setting those off like crazy. I remember a Accuweather one with reviews that had it going off on hot summer days with nary a cloud in the sky and detecting nothing during a heavy thunderstorm.
hello OM the lightning sensor from ecowitt is no different from any other consumer low cost implementation. simply most use the AS3935 component... no facility to use an external loop antenna or better the tuned resonant internal antenna apart from having a switch to shift the resonant frequency or termed as long antenna or short antenna the actual physically wound internal does not change . if you fire up your 100 watt rig into a non resonant antenna the AS3935 will go nuts , then in your case spurious harmonics .
the AS3935 does what is sez but it has limitations when used in built up urban environments , seasonal home use of combi boilers, air condition units , lawnmowers, arc welders , drills , nearby railway line, electric fences, flourescent tubes , christmas lights the list can go on and all these things
you find in everyday urban environments, im fortunate i have nothing but sea for 270degrees but if i point mine horizontally towards the built up area every combi boiler in the neighborhood triggers a strike.. if I flip my zippo lighter holding next to it will trigger a strike however i do that to make sure its still functional.
end of the day its a low cost approach and serves its purpose but experimental placing can take months to find the optimum noise free area and I found mounting horizontally more sensitive to distant storms but very directional north to south , west to east etc so i set up two east toand south to north as they are the predominant hotspots for here in istanbul.
as for earthquakes well i live only 30km from an active fault line something reliable and trusted would serve us well here , example how I make myself aware and family is we use a simple application that
records the smaller tremors it made available by the local seismological institute here and being on active fault line we used this only last saturday to good effect . from 6am to around 11am the small tremors increased in frequency i said to my wife get dressed grab the earthquake bag and be prepared and bang at around 1pm a 4.9 shook our property and a large jolt set off car alarms in the district .whilst thankfully it wasn’t significant but it could have been so there is technology there and theory just needs interpreting into a device . its not the first time weve used this method last one was october when it was a 5.8 and being only 30km from the epicenter it does rattle your nerves .so hopefully one day a consumer device based api data could be available.
this shows the last three years of using the AS3935 in a weatherflow unit but bear in my mind i have no interference or obstructions for 270 degrees all water and i guess would be an ideal spot for vhf tropospheric propagation from the sea ducts... 73s om have fun and if you live in a hotspot for lightning storms it will serve well as an awareness..you can see 2018 was a very active year for storms it was when one of my weatherstations took a direct hit and was fried .. ps not QRV G7LIJ/TA
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