Cumulus Support

I will use Cumulus when I can get my station working again.

My WH-1081 set bought from Maplin 2 years ago has a transmitter failure. I have found that the UK importer who sells them to Maplin will sell a new Tx for £7.50 but I am not convinced it’s the right model. This Tx is for the current 433Mhz WH-8681 with DCF clock and mine is 433Mhz without clock. Any idea if it will work OK as neither Maplin nor the importer seem to know?

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Not sure anyone can answer that one for you, may be a case of try it and see!?

My 868MHz with clock has just failed today (no LED at all on power up) - could you send me details of the importer to see if they have these units too?

Thanks.

My guess would be that as long as the frequency is the same, it shouldn't matter whether it's the DCF clock version or not.

Mark, ignore some of what I said above which was wrong. The importer is Waters & Stanton PLC Tel: 01702 206835 Fax: 01702 205843. They only sell the 868MHz with clock for set W-8681 but the manufacturer Fine Offset in China tell me it’s identical to WH-1080

Today importer gave me a different price for it from a different person at around £19. Maybe if you ask for James you might get the £7.50 price again.

This does not help me with a 433Mhz Tx but Maplin say they can sell me the right one (I am not convinced) for a steep £30.

Check your battery and for corrosion on contacts before replacing it.

I 'think' I may have it working again - I have replaced the diode you can see on the board. Before it would not even boot, now I have it booting, locking on to DCF and reporting the sensors. I just put a plain old common diode in it's place, I just worry that it is supposed to be a Zenner of some sort.

I will give the importers a call though - if I can get one for £7.50 it would be worth having a spare!

I spoke too soon, it worked for about 4 hours overnight, then packed in again - though the base station is occasionally picking up DCF!?

Oh dear! An intermittent fault Apart from a replacement, I suggest a very close scrutiny of the board, connections and solder joints - but you've probably done that already.

Yes, nothing obvious Gina. Shorting that diode kicked it into life, hence I replaced it, but that obviously isn't the root problem.

Now it will sometimes go through the initial start-up:- Single long blink, short data transmission blink, 5x DCF blinks, then nothing more

I have ordered a replacement transmitter (@£19) but I really think I would be better investing the money in a better quality station. Trouble is the Davis is too expensive and the Oregon WMR100 (or even the 200) which seems to strike a reasonable price/quality balance isn't supported by Cumulus - and I don't fancy the pain for switching to another package and hand crafting all the customisation for the web.