Cumulus Support

Hi all,
My wife bought me my first weather station as an early Christmas present, a Zephyr PWS-1000. I've had it set up for a little over a week. I initially set it up about 100' from our steel sided house. It kept losing contact with the outdoor sensor, so I moved it closer (~60') and all was well for 4-5 days. I live in one of the cold spots in the nation (MT), which is one reason I wanted a weather station. We've had a cold snap over the last couple of days. My problem is that when the temp drops, the sensor loses contact. The night before last, the sensor lost contact at -16F and last night it lost contact at -20F. I'm using new Energizer lithium batteries in the sensor. I'm using batteries out of the same package to power a separate wireless thermometer, which is working fine. I swapped the batteries between the two units yesterday, so I don't think it is a battery issue. I took the console out to the sensor this morning and it still will not resume contact. It didn't resume contact yesterday until the temp got above 0F. After that it seemed to work fine until the temps dropped again. Does this sound like there is something faulty with the sensor? Or is it possible with the steel siding that my sensor is still too far away? I can't really move the sensor any closer without affecting the accuracy of the anemometer. As it is, the weather station is pretty much useless, since we'll have another 15-20 nights this winter where the temp is colder than that. Any help is appreciated.

You might want to contact Charlie https://cumulus.hosiene.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=6447 as he is operating in quite severe weather. Are you using it within the operating specs for the unit? The steel wall obviously doesn't help but you say that it doesn't reconnect even when you take the console to the transmitter which would rule out the wall as being the problem.

Thanks for the reply. According to the specs, it should read down to -40. I might have to give Zephyr a call tomorrow. I suspect that the sensor doesn't like the cold for some reason.

Try changing the batteries in the console and what kind of batteries are you using in the console ?

Where is your console located in your home?

Do you still have your rain gauge plugged in. I suggest you turn it off for the season and replug it in March as you may risk damage to the unit because of the severe cold climate you have. I have the same unit but a NG 265 and i have more or less the same temp like your area. I live in Montreal Canada.

It was like pulling teeth to get a new sensor out of Zephyr. They said it was a cheap plastic weather station and was "probably freezing up"! It's a @$#* weather station! They finally agreed to send me a new sensor. If anything, it is even worse. It's now dropping sensor contact 3-4X/day, even if the temp is near freezing. Sometimes the dropout is 2 minutes, sometimes 1/2 hour. I've tried everything-new batteries in both sensor/console, I've moved the sensor to within 40' of the console, tried changing the angle of the sensor to point at the console, tried moving the console around inside the house, nothing seems to matter. I'm afraid I have no choice but to try to return it. I'm not looking forward to that with as much trouble as I had getting the new sensor. I fear it will come down to disputing it on the credit card. Their customer service sucks. I can't say that I'd recommend their weather stations to anyone.

get yourself a fine off set nc265 i had mine for 5 years now and no problems.

iceberg wrote:get yourself a fine off set nc265 i had mine for 5 years now and no problems.

That looks exactly like my station with a different brand name on it. No thanks, I'm done with fine offset.

I've been running my Zephyr PWS-1000TD for over a year. Last night the temp dropped to -23F and its been an average of -15.9 today. I am not running lithium batteries and I don't have lost of communications. You may want to try to move the sensor or display closer to each other.

I'm not sure how I missed this thread up to now.

If you do a search you'll find plenty of threads on this issue. The transmitter power is directly related to battery voltage. As batteries age and/or as temperatures drop, the voltage of regular batteries also drops, and hence the range gets shorter. If you are near the edge of the range, you will certainly lose contact on cold nights, or after a few weeks of use.

Lithium AA batteries hold their voltage significantly better with temperature (and use). They are expensive, but should last a decade or more - far longer than the weather station is likely to last (but I'm not bitter ).

Another potential issue I'm just learning about is that the radio transmitters in these units have their center frequency determined by a crystal resonator. Resonators will slightly change frequency with temperature, and If the receiver is not perfectly centered, it may not be able to pull in the signal if that signal is off frequency a bit. This would likely only happen at temperature extremes, but I'm pretty sure there is no temperature testing during production of these units. This would certainly explain lost contact messages on nights pushing -30 or -40.