Cumulus Support

I am sure its been asked before, but i couldnt find it....

Weather station now damaged beyond repair courtesy of a knackered windvane vibrating the station to nothing, anyway going to replace with the same (with a few home made reinforcements after)

ANYWAY, i have this exact system

http://www.maplin.co.uk/usb-touchscreen ... ter-228825

So i will now have two consoles, the question i have is, once set up, and tied in with the first console then cumulus, can I then start up the 2nd console and that receive the feed also, purely for "on the wall" information?

sure this has been done before. the newer stations might not work to the older console.

I sure this was mentioned before as well to do with replacing the transmitter unit.

at the end of the you can but try.

robynfali wrote:I am sure its been asked before, but i couldnt find it....

Hi,

Yes, it's been questioned several times before, but not definitively answered (at least on this forum). Perhaps you will be able to answer it ?

My belief is that FO changed the transmission protocol of the Maplin stations about one year ago, so the consoles probably will not work from the same transmitter.

Cheers, Alan.

I am interested in the answer too, for another reason:
If my neighbor (less than 20 meters away) buys a FO that transmits on the same frequency (NL: 868 MHz), will it interfere with mine, or is there something like a range of "channels" within that frequency?

Hi Henk,

There are no "channels" and AFAIK the FO protocol does not use any "address" data. The data is received by an "intended" receiver simply because the transmissions are spaced exactly 48 seconds apart by crystal control (perhaps accurate to within a few parts per million). Two "independent" systems may eventually interfere when their transmissions drift into phase, but this may take many months or even years.

The "old" FO protocol transmitted for just 50ms each 48s, or a 0.1% duty cycle. So if for example the two signals drift into collision once per year, then there may be an "outage" of perhaps 16 hours (potential interference will occur if one signal leads or trails the other by up to about 50ms).

However, a further potential problem is if the "interfering" transmission is sufficiently strong that it is read by the "wrong" receiver. In that case the receiver will lock to the new signal permanently. It will then start logging the neighbour's data (the most likely indicator will be a sudden change in the rainfall counter) until the Console is re-sychronised (disconnect USB and remove/replace the receiver batteries).

The "new" protocol appears to transmit for a significantly longer period of time, but may include "redundancy" (repetition of the data) so it's not clear whether it is potentially more "rugged". Since the battery power/life is claimed to be similar, then the average transmitter power may actually be lower. But in close proximity, the new protocol would appear to "blot out" signals using the old protocol for a much longer proportion of the time.

Personally, I have not seen (or heard of) any FO 868MHz stations using the "new" protocol. The only ones definitely using it appear to be the 3080/1 Solar versions (UK/Australia) and the Maplin (UK) 1081s.

Cheers, Alan.

Allycat/Alan: Thanks for the explanation.

I take it back!!!!!


If you have TWO maplin consoles that have been manufactured around the same time they might work


The station i bought last week, well the anemometer froze, so i had to take it back, but accidently packed the wrong display unit, leaving the new one at home and giving the old one back, so now i have two new display units, and during set up tonight, i tried it, inserting the batteries in the transmitter, then 1st display, then 2nd, all within 30 seconds.

Guess what.............identical indoor and outdoor info on both!