Topic: EcoWitt WH57 false positives

[StephenH]

I recently purchased the ECOWITT WN1981 Wi-Fi Weather Station Indoor and Outdoor, Includes WN1980 LCD Display Console and WS90 Outdoor Sensor, 915 MHz. It arrived at the end of January and I installed it. It has been working well, although I still need to calibrate the rain sensor. I also ordered the WH57 Wireless Lightning Detector Sensor and installed it. This has been an exercise in frustration.

The lightning sensor keeps reporting hits at a distance of 8 miles. I have changed the settings from standard all down to low sensitivity and still get strikes at 8 miles even though we have had no thunderstorms or lightning in our area during the time I have had it. I have written Ecowitt customer support and they suggested moving it, which I did. They also suggested setting it back to all switches down, which I also did. I continue to get a count of "strikes" at 8 miles. March 2nd, it was 27. March 3rd, it was 20. It has been as high as 40 some odd "strikes" at 8 miles distance.

I have until March 8th to return this item which I will do unless someone can suggest how to get it to stop with the false positive reports. It isn't useful if I can't trust it. I would appreciate any suggestions or advice that I could implement.

Additional information: I am an amateur radio operator and have HF, VHF, and UHF transmitters. I orginally had the WH57 mounted on the same side of the house as my main HF antenna. I moved it to the other side of the house. We live on a small lot and I can't move it much farther away. Moving it did not help anyway. What else could I try?

Edit:  I am using Energizer Ultimate Lithium batteries.

[swright1957]

Hi
Do any of these false strikes coincide with you using the VHF equipment for your radio?
if not try changing the settings on the WH57 to low, and see what happens.

[StephenH]

I am running a Terrestrial Amateur Radio Packet Network (TARPN) node. It has both UHF and VHF radios. These are running constantly and multiple times an hour, it at least gives a status update. The count does not seem to have any correlation to the use of the radios. I already tried switching to low power (switch positions 1 and 2-down, 3 and 4-up). So far today, there is a count of 21 at the distance of 8 miles.

Either this unit is a dud or there is something out there that is putting out a signal being picked up by this unit and interpreted as lightning. There is a power substation, but it is about 2 miles away, not 8.

[countzero]

I get phantom hits every now and again at precisely 31 kilometres. It's a minor irritation. I'm guessing it's someone's irrigation turning on but I still haven't nailed it down to a schedule that makes sense

[zoomx]

I have false positives too, only one a day that is for sure connected to something that happens in my house because if nobody is in no false positive occurs.
I believe it is a LED lamp (not the others, only one) but this occour not when it is turned on but after some time.

[swright1957]

It could be the power station, that is turning on or off.
If you have turned it down to low and still happening it could be a faulty unit, but try putting it indoors next to the gateway and see what happens...

[Del Schier]

I recently received an installed a WH57B ecowitt lightning detector. It has been getting false positives [ You are not allowed to view attachments ]  randomly many times a day. I had it on a pole about 20' up and I have tried all switches down and also mid and low sensitivity settings on 3,4. I also moved it 50' away on the other side of my house with similar results.
Today I found it uses a AS3935 sensor IC that receives on 500 KHz with a 33 KHz bandwidth with a tiny MA5532-AE coil antenna.
I will try and monitor that frequency and see if I can discover what is causing the false signals. Perhaps my water pump or AC units.
I think an AM broadcast radio tuned to the bottom of the band may help find the interference.
I am suspect that it is not local interference as the power went out to my neighborhood and I ran the weather display on a battery and saw false readings with no AC power on my street. A storm came through and I think it did actually detect lightning but maybe only once and that did not correspond to the thunder I heard and flashes I saw.
Chances are I will have to give up on the thing.

[alanb]

You probably already know this, but just in case ... When you change switch settings on the lightning detector, make sure you reset it by removing and replacing the batteries. Otherwise, the switch change does not take. I made that error with my comparable Ambient WH31L sensor when I first got it and was trying to eliminate false positives.

[Del Schier]

No I didn't but that makes sense. I will try that now
Thanks!

[Del Schier]

After setting the switches to low sensitivity and removing and reinstalling the batteries, still false positives every few minutes.
I will try wrapping it in aluminum foil and putting it next to the display I bet it still gets false positives.

[Del Schier]

Wrapping it in aluminum foil with it next to the display I get no false positives! So the WH57 may be working but I have interference that existed when the power in my neighborhood was out. The power company has another circuit within 300' that was on during the outage so I need to look over in that area with a 500 KHz receiver. I expect there is arcing on a power line.
Has anyone found a source of interference?

[Julie774]

This is likely to be normal RF interference, especially when you have HF/VHF/UHF transmitters around. Devices like the WH57 are noise-sensitive to radio, and if the false alarms only happen at the same range, an external source of RF is likely to be at fault.

Have you tried wrapping the sensor in aluminum foil (just for an experiment) or placing it inside a metal box to see if that reduces the false alarms? If so, then it's definitely RF interference. You might possibly also try placing it further away or adjusting your antenna setup.

[jaltman]

I have an old Drake L7 power amplifier for my ham radio.  It would send off a false strike to the lightning detector every time i turned it on.  The lightning detector was about 7 feet away, but outside the basement wall.  Since the power switch is made of unobtainium, i added a solid state relay and rewired it so instead of carrying full amplifier power, it switched 12 volts to the solid state relay.  No more arcing, no more false positives and the power switch will be good for another 50 years.

Jim

[Del Schier]

The WH57 is a 500 KHz receiver with a https://www.mouser.com/pdfdocs/AMS_AS3935_Datasheet_v4.pdf chip and tiny loop antenna that is supposed to have a algorithm to discern lightning from other radio noises at that frequency. It appears to be a sophisticated device. But it doesn't work! It has been useless for me.
I have tried it inside and hundreds of feet from my house in several locations and all the different switch settings.
Ecowitt support said "discontinue use of the product"!
I believe that mine is not defective. I wrapped it in aluminum foil with it next to the Ecowitt display and it was communicating with the weather station but did not pick up anything when it was wrapped up.
I tried using a portable AM broadcast receiver to find the source of the interference but that was a waste of time because it is so infrequent. I suspect it is power line noise some distance away because I was still getting false positives when the power on my street went out and I had the display running on a 5V battery.
I am also an amateur radio operator, K1UHF, and I have located power line noise and successfully got the power company to fix it.
It seems like it should have a microphone and photodiode so it sees and hears the strikes, it which case it could accurately calculate the distance. Maybe correlate that with the radio pulse.
I think Ecowitt knows they don't work.

[Del Schier]

Oh I forgot to attach this.

[MrM1]

Either this unit is a dud or there is something out there that is putting out a signal being picked up by this unit and interpreted as lightning. There is a power substation, but it is about 2 miles away, not 8.

You might want to consider the "Dud" Option

I got my WH57 from Amazon US last week.  First day set up, clear skies,  getting 60+ false positives.  Messed with location, settings, dip switches.   Only got worse.  Up to 200+

Sent it back,  ordered another one from Amazon US.  Works perfectly.   ZERO strikes in clear skies the past 2 days.    32 strikes last Monday morning as a thunder storm rolled thru ... Seemed about right.  Missed a few for sure 

So now I have the Dips set the Most Sensitive Setting.  And working great. Zero hits in clear skies.  Waiting for the next storm to test more.

[MrM1]

Here is the Difference Between my First WH57 and my Replacement WH57

On Saturday March 8.   I replace the First one with the Replacement at 5pm.  No Strikes after 5pm
 [ You are not allowed to view attachments ]

Then on Monday March 11,  Storm rolled in at around 7am.  You can see,  no strikes before,  and no strikes after the storm blew thru
 [ You are not allowed to view attachments ]

In my Case ... it was a Dud Sensor For sure
- Sunday had ZERO Strikes
- And since Monday morning there has been ZERO Strikes ... Even with the sensor now set to "Most Sensitive"