Cumulus Support

Hi there,

i have a wh1088pro weather setup and have had an on going problem with it loosing sensor contact, now i've sent parts away ect as a result the supplier got sick of me annoying him and replaced everything.

i set it all up and alas exactly the same problem, looses sensor contact after a day, somtimes an hour. I have had a friend bring up a frequency scanner to check the freq and have found something is intermittently beeping on the band the transmitter seems to use i found it on 434.000mhz, just a buzz noise whenever the transmit signal pops up on the lcd of the base unit. wich is it talking between the transmitter and the base, this other noise is alot louder that comes over sometimes. im guessing if it was at the same time as my transmitter if would cause it to drop out. it must be a neighbours weather station or other wireless device. is there any way i can change the settings on the base to change the frequency slightly? i dont know how to get around this problem.

Any help appreciated.

Thanks

I know nothing about electronics but I guess you would need to improve your signal strength as you cannot change the frequency. Is the transmitter and receiver in line of sight and are they as close to one another as possible? If not, can you achieve this by getting a usb extension (this would gain you up to 5 metres).

nking wrote:I know nothing about electronics but I guess you would need to improve your signal strength as you cannot change the frequency. Is the transmitter and receiver in line of sight and are they as close to one another as possible? If not, can you achieve this by getting a usb extension (this would gain you up to 5 metres).

Yeah its situated about 4 meters from the transmitter, the base is. and it still looses contact. is there any way to extend the antenna, soldering a wire somewhere in the transmitter?

There have been several threads about "lost contact" problems and various attempts to fix if you search the forum.

If your transmitter is the same as the older versions, these things send information every 48 seconds, but not at a precise time - it basically boots up, sends data for a bit, then sends data every 48 seconds after that. The odds of your neighbor having put the batteries in his unit at precisely the same second out of 48 you did is virtually impossible. I think what you are hearing is the actual transmission of your own unit.

It is possible your signal will get better if you change the orientation of your receiver and/or transmitter. Try rotating first one, then the other, then both at 90 degrees to the way they are now - in other words, if you have the receiver aligned to an east-west wall, try aligning it with a north-south wall.

What batteries are you using? Rechargables have lower voltage and a high self discharge rate, and range is directly related to battery voltage. Make sure you are using fresh alkaline or lithiums.

4 meters is unusually short. I've run 30 meters for months in winter without an issue - right now I'm running 10. If you've changed the unit, then the issue must be related to your setup in some way. Perhaps posting some pictures would help us spot the problem...

Charlie wrote:There have been several threads about "lost contact" problems and various attempts to fix if you search the forum.

If your transmitter is the same as the older versions, these things send information every 48 seconds, but not at a precise time - it basically boots up, sends data for a bit, then sends data every 48 seconds after that. The odds of your neighbor having put the batteries in his unit at precisely the same second out of 48 you did is virtually impossible. I think what you are hearing is the actual transmission of your own unit.

It is possible your signal will get better if you change the orientation of your receiver and/or transmitter. Try rotating first one, then the other, then both at 90 degrees to the way they are now - in other words, if you have the receiver aligned to an east-west wall, try aligning it with a north-south wall.

What batteries are you using? Rechargables have lower voltage and a high self discharge rate, and range is directly related to battery voltage. Make sure you are using fresh alkaline or lithiums.

4 meters is unusually short. I've run 30 meters for months in winter without an issue - right now I'm running 10. If you've changed the unit, then the issue must be related to your setup in some way. Perhaps posting some pictures would help us spot the problem...

Yeah you are exactly right, every 48 sec i hear the transmitter buzz on the scanner and the little icon in the LCD flashes, but every 59 sec something else is louder like a beep for about 0.5 sec, every now and then its being smeared over the top of my transmitter signal and it seems to struggle to regain contact after this has happened, sometimes its the next day before its linked again without me doing anything, i might try and move the whole setup so the transmitter is directly through the wall from the panel, i've set it up in about 4 different spots, the furtherest was about 15 meters away up on the roof i can put some pics up but the way it is currently is 4 meters direct line, through a big window. running out of ideas... cheers for the suggestions

I've read about this problem many times... I wish I knew if it was a frequency problem or a transmitter issue.

As a matter of interest, when my mobile is in the same room as a TV running on TV1, the weakest TV Station, I can hear and see the polling of the mobile every 10 seconds or so. Distortion on the screen and sound corrupted.
Your mobile, or some other radio device, is not near your Desktop Console is it?

DOes anybody know if the WH1088 are usb 1.1 or usb 2.0? im not getting the interference in my garage, under the house but still get my transmitter signal...im going to try putting the Base panel down there and using UNITEK USB 1.1 Cat5e/6 Extender back to my PC, which is mainly what i want to use it for...cumulus.

It is usual for the operating system to issue a warning when you connect a USB 1 item into a USB 2 port, therefore, I would guess it's 2 but of course it may not conform to usb standards.

Hi

I had dropout problems when a neighbour installed a similar station. I found an external antenna on the base station helped a lot and moving the transmitter closer to the house.
I'm not sure of the antenna length for that frequency - no doubt someone will comment - though I believe it is not too critical at the receive end. The antenna is attached with mini coax cable soldered to the existing wire antenna connection with the outer to the battery negative. You might be lucky and find an antenna position that is interference free without going down to the garage. It might be worth trying as it is sometimes quite useful to be close to the station.
Regards
Alan