Cumulus Support

DavidG wrote:does anyone have a recommendation for a new weather station that I might buy that might be slightly better quality - but not very expensive?

I suppose I am thinking around £100 - £200.

It's a question often asked, but in my opinion, you don't get a significant increase in quality until you get up to a Davis, and a Vantage Vue (with logger) will cost over £350. The quality of Oregon Scientific stations seems to be higher than the Fine Offset/La Crosse stations, but in the price range you mention, you're looking at a station without a logger, so you need to keep the PC and Cumulus running all the time. And an OS station with a logger is about the same price as a Vantage Vue with logger.

Of course, there are lots of other stations available which don't work with Cumulus, but I have no experience of those.

My next station is definitely a Vantage Vue. I'm pretty sick of FO now, just when I thought I had fixed it, it stops working suddenly (properly) when it rains or something. It went through 2 storms flawlessly, now there are simple showers and it's failing like hell. No one can understand FO's stupid "seizures" these days. It's well protected from rain and humidity so I don't see the problem.

DavidG wrote:I don't understand why it never restores communication once it has failed.

Hi David,

Yes, that is "unusual" behaviour, but unfortunately the 2080 appears to be "unusual" itself, the vast majority of FO stations in my experience are 1080/1 and 3080/1.

AFAIK none of the FO stations use an "address" in the normal communications manner, the receiver simply looks for a signal exactly 48 seconds (and precise multiples) after the "locked" (latest) one. It appears that some of the solar pods of the 3080 models had a design/defect with their crystal oscillator (which was perhaps fixed by soldering the crystal's can to the PCB earth) that caused the time delay to "slip". That required the Console to be re-synchronised, but that's easy with the 3080s because you simply hold in a <down-arrow> button for some seconds.

The manual for the 3080 says that if the signal is lost for a significant time (~5 minutes?) then the Console searches automatically for the transmitter signal, however, in practice it does NOT actually appear to do that. IMHO it would be a bad idea because the "search" may find garbage (or another FO station) and then the original signal will never be found again. But it might be that that "feature" was included in the 2080 software (purely my hypothesis), before they realised that a new search in those circumstances isn't a very good idea.

As for other stations, IMHO FO actually do quite a lot "fairly well", so the cheapest/best option may be to buy a second complete FO station (target price £50) and you might be able to make up one reasonably good system.

Cheers, Alan.

Hi David

My opinion because you do not have results with change antenna,the problem is your out thermo/hygro sensor maybe from strong vibration or drop it down,or no good trimmer capacitor it change capacity,and it have decrease the power.For test it must go the electronic service someone to have RF field strength meter for measurement,but this i suppose is difficult from you.

But you can experiment if you have time more,with external cable straight line one ply 1,5 mm ,another position e.t.c.But it need time.

One question : How is the distance straight line bettwen out thermo/hygro sensor with console ,and how many walls inside ?

I agree Davis weather station is more better from La-crosse,oregon,watson,Nevanda,NG,pro weather station,Zephyr e.t.c.i have one Davis vantage pro 2,it have 3 times more power at wireless signal from other station,it no need you build stevenson screen or fan aspirated radiation shield with dishes for correct measurements,it have wireless data to console every 2,5 sec,you can add and other sensors,and more extra like correct UV-solar (because i had read the watson UV have incorrect measurements) ,and more,the cost Davis is high ,but it have very good credible.

But you can spend 100-200 £ for this money you can buy a cheap weather station,for me La-crosse is better from watson and clone.And the model La-crosse ws23XX you can have conection console-out thermo/hygro sensor with telephone cable 20 meters ,and you have external data at console every 8 sec.
I do not have good experience with oregon,and oregon rain gauge resolution is every 1 mm.

The final choice is yours of course,but if you can add little money yet and buy a Davis.

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