Console pauses at midnight

[sgrmick]

I've been running a Watson W-8681 since early last summer and have had very few reasons for concern, however, I have just noticed a strange occurrence where the console appears to hang or pause for approx 10 mins at midnight rollover time, during which time no data appears to be passed to the Cumulus' display (Cumulus v1.9.2). The console exhibits a static display of the most recent data whilst its clock works okay and continues to display the correct time.

The first time it happened I panicked and pomptly closed Cumulus down. Upon restart there was some false readings with temperature and rainfall which I had to edit/correct. Since that first time I have waited patiently until approx 10 minutes past midnight when the console comes back to life and begins passing data to Cumulus once again without any obvious adverse effects.

Are there any running processes at the midnight rollover time that would explain this pause? Is this in fact a normal routine that I haven't previously noticed?

Just before noticing this occurrence I upgraded to Cumulus build 1021 and amended the way that my average wind readings were calculated by de-selecting the 'use speed for avg calculation'. My average wind speeds now closely resemble local forecasts wheras previously they were much lower.

I sense that it's something I have done or changed but wouldn't think that Cumulus would affect the operation of the console?

From ten past midnight everything is just fine once again.

[AllyCat]

Hi,

I believe the transmitter unit stops sending data whilst it checks the Radio Controlled Clock time signal. It's typically at 1.00 am (and subsequent hours if reception fails), when radio interference is expected to be lower, but then 1.00 in Germany (where the transmitter is located) is midnight here.

Reception should only take a few minutes but perhaps you have a new interference or reception problem locally which causes it to continue "looking" until a ten minute timeout occurs. The internal clock will continue working fine anyway (the RCC is only available in some models and countries), is your RCC icon on the console displayed?

Cheers, Alan.

[steve]

I can't see that there's anything that Cumulus can do that would effect the operation of the console, it just reads data. There's nothing different at midnight as far as reading the console data is concerned.

[sgrmick]

...Reception should only take a few minutes but perhaps you have a new interference or reception problem locally which causes it to continue "looking" until a ten minute timeout occurs...

Cheers, Alan.

Now that could be the explanation I was looking for - thank you! If I'd looked further than the actual console myself then perhaps I wouldn't have been doing so much hair-tearing!

I've recently moved home, only about 30 miles or so, but the transmitter has been relocated. The new location has a more open aspect but perhaps that doesn't make much difference - maybe the 30 miles has?

My RRC icon is correctly displayed alongside the console clock. I have noticed that this 10 minute or so pause actually commences during the one minute prior to midnight - noticeable by the fact that the wind data stops updating.

Is there any way to check this theory?

[AllyCat]

Hi,

The distance to the RCC transmitter is unlikely to be the problem, but the orientation of the external sensor might be. The RCC antenna is directional so try rotating the transmitter unit by 90 degrees around a vertical axis, if it's reasonably accessible. Here is a link from another recent post.

I don't know of any way to test for RCC reception, except to remove and replace the batteries in both transmitter and console (and disconnect the USB) which is probably more than you want to try.

Cheers, Alan.

[sgrmick]

Thanks Alan. I'll try altering the orientation of the transmitter and see if that helps. I believe at the moment that the transmitter is aligned more or less along an east/west line so I'll try first with a 45 degree swivel and see how it performs tonight.

[sgrmick]

Hmmm... After moving the transmitter through approximately 45 degrees I had hoped for better but at least tonight has been an improvement on recent nights.

The console stopped receiving data at approx 1 minute before midnight and the next data received was at 7 min 44 secs past. I'm beginning to wonder if this has been going on for longer than I first thought.

Has anyone else with a Fine Offset noticed a similar occurrence at midnight? Is anyone else still up at that time to notice!

[Spider-Vice]

It's not just at midnight but it also happens at 21:00 and times like that. The FO stations have a 7 minute max period to search the DCF signal, so they stop transmitting weather data to give priority to the DCF signal search. If it succeeds it'll start transmitting before the 7 minutes, if it fails, normal operation will come back after 7 minutes of search. I've noticed it happening at times like 19:00, 21:00, 1:00, etc.