Spurious rainfall..Watson WH8681

[Mike D]

Hi Guys,

I have finally mounted the sensors on a 15ft extending pole to the rear of my neighbours garden. It was temporarily mounted in my back garden, but the reading were not accurate with wind direction and speed. Now out in the open and about 930ft ASL

Anyway, as part of my messing about I have managed to get a rainfall reading of 672.9mm I did disconnect the rain gauge whilst messing about.

I have edited the Cumulus log files, but it seems it is the weather base station that is sending this figure. I have cleared the memory on it, removed the USB and batteries, and finally used Easyweather to clear the history, but this figure is still showing up on the base station!

Am I missing something really obvious ??

Many thanks in advance for a solution.

[steve]

I think you have to remove the batteries from the remote transmitter to clear the rain total; I think the remote unit actually stores the number of tips and transmits that figure to the base station.

[dane]

Clearing the memory in the base station does not clear its rainfall memory
Try pressing the rain field 4 times and hold for at least 3 secs to clear max. rainfall value.
Press a 5th time and hold for at least 3 secs again to clear total rainfall value.
Maybe that does the trick - or maybe Steve's suggestion works
Ib

[steve]

Your method sounds easier, assuming the console isn't up a 15ft pole

[Mike D]

Thanks Chaps, I'll give it a go...the console isn't up a 15ft pole; it is in my back bedroom window, but the the sensors (excluding rain gauge) are..

As the weather station uploads to the village community website I'd better get it sorted otherwise I'll get some ear bashing

I did as Dane suggested and the total has cleared on the base console, I have also re-edited the Oct09log.txt file to adjust the rainfall rates, however this has not cleared the problem in Cumulus and I'm still getting rainfall showing as 672.9mm

I'll go out in the morning and remove the batteries from the sensors on the pole and see what happens.

I'll report back!

Many thanks.


M.

[steve]

Sorry Mike, I must have misunderstood; I thought you had reset the rain in Cumulus. The station must still be sending Cumulus the large total. If you look in Oct09log.txt, the 'total rainfall counter' field will show this. To correct for this, you need to edit the Start= figure in today.ini (with Cumulus stopped). Cumulus calculates today's rain by subtracting that Start= figure (it's the value of the counter at start of day) from the current 'total rainfall counter'. So you need to adjust the Start= figure appropriately to get today's figure where you want it.

[Mike D]

Hi Steve,

I don't think it is Cumulus. I have now noticed that "Last Hour" Rainfall is staying at 672. Not rained at all today. In the today.ini file the start figure is a reasonable 50.0999, so I think I need to get the batteries out of the sensor as I cannot see 672.9 in any of the Cumulus data files.

Also, I have noticed that my barometric pressure, which was pretty accurate to that at Manchester Airport had also dropped by 6mb which have had to offset on the config menu, and I am now not picking up the Digital Clock Signal either So, it will have to be mast down and batteries out in the morning.

I am now more than happy with the wind direction and speed as I am now in the open, albeit at the top of hill and even now, the direction graph is very, very steady at SE, whereas previously it used to fluctuate wildly.

[apenwith]

Hi
I've had the spurious rainfall - all 5000 mm of it. It kept coming back despite removing the sensor batteries and the base batteries. I found by chance that if you leave the sensor unit batteries out for some time (Not sure how long) the counter does eventually clear. It must have some semi non-volatile memory. I use a remote battery box at the bottom of my pole so it is a bit easier to change/remove them.
Regards
Alan

[Mike D]

Well, I seem to have had some success. I lowered the pole, removed the shroud and took the batteries out for about 5 minutes. I also removed the batteries from the base console etc.

I have also re-edited the Cumulus log files and everything seems OK and readings are looking normal now.

Still not got the DCF back on, and I did rotate the sensor arm by 90 degrees to see if it got a better signal - it may take some time to get back up. I'll wait and see what happens.

The pole itself is a lightweight aluminium one and is fixed to my neighbours timber fence post with 3 large screws. All I do is remove two of them and swing the pole down for any maintenance. The rain gauge is fixed to the fence post. I like the idea of a separate battery box; however as the pole is next to a public footpath that gets regular use by ramblers I would like to keep everything out of reach!

Many thanks to Steve, Dane and Alan for your suggestions; I'm very grateful.


M.

[Repairman77]

Mike D;
DFC77 can take anywhere from an hour to a day to restart, according to another thread I was reading on here.
Mike.

[Mike D]

Just by way of an update, the DCF is now synchronised. It is running exactly to the second with my other bedside DCF clock. I would have thought that there would be some form of indicator on the base console to show the DCF signal was being received - my bedside clock has; and that was a freebie from a corporate 'do' watching the cricket at Old Trafford!

[Repairman77]

Not sure if your console display is the same as the WH1080 but that shows a little clam-type symbol in the bottom left hand corner next to the time display. (For some reason mine's disappeared this morning; probably due to the signal being interfered with by the stormy weather).
Mike.

[Mike D]

That is the type of thing I was expecting - in fact I seem to recollect something like that on the base console display, (unless I'm getting confused with the symbol on my freebie clock). There is none showing, but the clock is still bang on to the second with my freebie clock which shows it is receiving a signal.

[apenwith]

Hi Miked
My 8681 has a little aerial symbol at the bottom left corner and the letters DCF when its working (which isn't always).
Regards
Alan

[Mike D]

Thanks Alan,

The symbol must come on when I walk out of the room!