Phantom Rain and other quirks

[apenwith]

Hi
I still use Easyweather for one particular purpose and yesterday it added 500 entries to the dat file. They all seemed to have the same time stamp but different date stamps.
Cumulus wasn't affected although the 6000 mm of rain did show up on Cumulus. It's the second 6000 I've had since running the 8681 since May 09. The wind has been blowing up to 40 or 50 knots which may well have blown water into the sensor. I suppose the wind could have set up a sort of harmonic vibration of the rain bucket or damp in the sensor caused a circuit short which counted wind instead of rain ( guessing that the windspeed also operates on a click per turn basis).
On another thread someone mentions interference from power lines and as there is an 11000 v pole only 60 metres away and it was certainly wet that might also explain things though how the powerline got the coding in the easyweather.dat file right remains a mystery.
Regards
Alan

[hans]

both the rainmeter as the windspeedmeter operate by clickscounting(reedcontact and magnet).

the only place they are nearest by eachother is in the transmitter,so water inside that could cause a shortcircuit.
the tiltbucket in the rainmeter could be hanging(dirt,water,insect etc)
faulty reed in the rainmeter.
loose magnet in the tiltbucket.

if it was the wind toying with the tiltbucket,maybe you could unscrew your rainmeter and place it a quarter turn back again

[steve]

Apart from the 'mechanical' spurious rain caused by wind etc, where the buckets do actually move, the Fine Offset stations seem to be quite good at just adding a large number to the rainfall counter for no adequately explained reason.

[beteljuice]

My experience with this is LaCrosse kit, but the rain buckets are exactly the same.

Once, whilst playing with a CATtle fence I kept getting odd rain clicks (especially with increased humidity), I eventually traced it to the rain bucket. No amount of shielding or changing cabling or earthing would totally stop it.

I had to conclude the gold-plated reed relay was acting as an ionisation detector and was either trembling or 'unbiasing' with HT emf.

No other part of the kit was observerly affected, and the only recourse was to move the HT (fence) wires further away.

Never did stop the cats

[Repairman77]

I wouldn't think there was a shorting out problem of the sensor at all; the most likely explanation (if the rain sensor is on a pole in high winds) is the internal rain mechanism is being shaken about.

It's apparently a common fault with this type of sensor according to posts on these forums; although I don't really suffer from it much myself.

Mike

[goldrush]

To add to previous comments
I originally had lots of problems with spurious rain readings with the bucket mounted on the original 1" pole due to wind "vibrations".
Moved it (and the transmitter) to a free standing 2" 8foot pole. Much better, but actually had to fill the pole with concrete to completley cure it, although we are in an extremely exposed and windy site.
Best method seems to be to mount the rain bucket on a flat solid wall.

[Repairman77]

To add to previous comments
I originally had lots of problems with spurious rain readings with the bucket mounted on the original 1" pole due to wind "vibrations".
Moved it (and the transmitter) to a free standing 2" 8foot pole. Much better, but actually had to fill the pole with concrete to completley cure it, although we are in an extremely exposed and windy site.
Best method seems to be to mount the rain bucket on a flat solid wall.

Mine's on a fairly thick pole and the wind tends to slightly blow it sideways on to the rain unit, rather than end on which would tip the buckets more.

I sometimes think, at the end of the day, we are expecting these cheap units to operate as efficiently and accurately as some of the pro units which cost thousands of pounds. Although we can always improve them I don't think they are ever going to be that good.

Mike.

[goldrush]

Quite agree Repairman............... except that some of the "thousand pound units" are probably made by the same little Chinese craftsman and sold to the "brand names" at a similar price.

Like you, I have spent a lifetime in electronics, well, almost 60 years, since the age of the "Bright Emmiter valve". (that shows my age!) and nothing now surprises me.

[Repairman77]

Quite agree Repairman............... except that some of the "thousand pound units" are probably made by the same little Chinese craftsman and sold to the "brand names" at a similar price.

Like you, I have spent a lifetime in electronics, well, almost 60 years, since the age of the "Bright Emmiter valve". (that shows my age!) and nothing now surprises me.

Oh dear, I remember those too. My grandfather used to build radios and I played with these old hand-built sets as a young child.
I'm 65 now but still remember those sets with the tuning coil which was controlled by a knob on the front to swing it left and right!

How things have changed. They wouldn't have believed you if you'd described a miniature mobile phone like mine with a radio mp3 player and camera in it; they'd have thought you were mad!

However anemometers in those days were probably more accurate than the WH1080 series!

Mike.

[daj]

since the age of the "Bright Emmiter valve". (that shows my age!)

I had to Google that!

[Repairman77]

By the way, I have one of those WX stations run by the Highways Agency about a mile down the road to me.

I stopped and had a chat to the chap who was servicing it a year or two back and he explained that it was connected to the central depot by landline. I was hoping it may have been a radio link; I could have received that and possibly decoded the data. That was a very nice pro job and built like a tank.

[goldrush]

Repairman.
Ill join in some nostalga.....
I rememebr the first "radio" I built as a schoolboy..... the "old crystal and cats whisker", a pair of headphones and an aerial wire about 100 yards long.
I think I just beat you. I am 74:-(
I still also remember as a lad climbing our largest pine tree (Before the stupid nanny state) to install a massive Band 1 tv aerial in the top to recieve Sutton Coldfield black and white transmissions when I lived in Wiltshire........ 1 minute of picture.... 20 minutes of fiddling. 2 hours of "snow" !!
Then later as a "mature adult" joining MOD and discovering that even then, the Navy used a "Spark Transmitter" as back up on certain classes!!!!!!!!!

Those were the days.

[steve]

I have to say I like the fact that the average age of Cumulus users appears to be about 70. It makes me feel very young at (nearly) 51.

[Super-T]

Cats whisker and a bit of crystal rock (not crack) at the age of 7 or 8 was my first electronics. Radio Suva in all it's glory.