Cumulus Support

Purchased a WH3080 just over a month ago from Signatrol. It worked fine until during the Christmas period some functions became intermittant. Then it stopped altogther. Yesterday I retrieved it from it's position and went through a reset procedure (including testing the batteries). Since then it has worked fine except for the RCC which will not connect. Any ideas what to try?

Whilst I am posting I have to say that having found this forum it seems that the WH 3080 was not a wise choice judging from the number of problems reported and the number of components being returned as faulty, especially in respect of the solar panel ( which I thought in my innocence was a good feature).
Is this the majority or just a minority of WH3080 owners?

Ron

NO disrespect to Signatrol, because they don't make it, but the 3080 is a big pile of steaming....... you get the picture

I just gave up after having the 4th or 5th new station, Signatrol were very good about it

reskivers wrote:Since then it has worked fine except for the RCC which will not connect. Any ideas what to try?

Hi Ron,

Try to be patient, there is not 24-hour radio propagation, and it may take a while to receive a strong enough signal to set the clock.

From the WH-2080 manual:

RCC reception may take a couple of days to receive the signal.

It literally, just takes time !

That is one of the problems I had with it, it wouldn't pick up the signal, so the batteries were dying very quickly because it constantly tries to pick it up.

If it could pick the signal up from Rugby it would help, but no, for some stupid reason it has to pick it up from Germany


Also signatrol recommend to orientate it if your Ian low signal area toward the signal (roughly SW for me) which negates pointing the solar panel south

Thanks for the replies. I shall be patient and keep hoping .
Rob, thanks also for increasing my foreboding

Ron

Sorry mate, it would be a fantastic piece of kit if it worked perfectly,

Any idea what frequency the Fine Offset units have their ears tuned to? 2.5, 5, 10, 15 or 20 MHz?

The reason it's listening to a station in Germany or elsewhere is all about radio wave propagation.

Some times I can hear WWV in Ft. Collins, CO (300 miles away as the corn flies), other times I can hear WWVH transmitting from Hawaii, other times (rarely) neither one. Just the way the ionosphere works and propagation occurs.

No Tim, no idea of the frequency. The manual doesn't mention it.

Ron

Hi Tim,

According to the Clas Ohlson manual, the German transmitter uses 77.5 kHz in the Long Wave band. The equivalent transmitters in UK and USA are 60 kHz.

Cheers, Alan.

The German (DCF77) ERP is also much higher than the UK one (which is now in Anthorn, Cumbria, rather than Rugby), so I suspect that for a lot of people in the UK, the German signal is a better source anyway. Not that I know very much about radio transmission!

I sit corrected!!, thanks Steve, i never knew it moved, mind you it was 20+ years ago possibly that i went past the place, quite a sight too.

Cumbria would not have been a problem for me I think, rather than 900+ miles of german travel

Thanks everyone for all of the information spewed forth. I had never thought about how the rest of the world sets their clocks and calibrates their oscillators.

Yes, there is a 60 KHz station at WWV although I have never had a receiver that tuned that low and it would probably not matter as the QRN is usually pretty high in that part of the spectrum.

I used to listen to CHU coming from Ottawa on 7.335 MHz, just above the 40M ham band. In doing some reading, I found out my transceiver has not assumed room temperature as they have moved it to 7.850 MHz 4 years ago.

Now I'm still curious what frequency FO's are listening to for North American built units.

Thanks again gents and Happy 2013 from this side of the little puddle.

Still being patient - the RCC still will not connect but having moved my console to a different place I do not seem to be losing sensor contact now ( so far). I shall try re-orienting the sensor unit (if the rain would only stop for a while) to see if it will pick up the RCC signal from a different direction.

I'm afraid you have left me behind in respect of frequencies etc - I know nothing of such matters, but I do wish you all a Happy and Peaceful New Year. And Tim I hope you Yanks don't fall off the Cliff!!

Ron