Tag: Peet Bros.

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serial problemsAfter a few successful months, again we have serial problems with the connection between the Peet Bro’s Ultimeter 2100 weather station and my Kenwood TM-D710. A few days ago I noticed some ‘flat lines’ on aprs.fi in my weather station telemetry. That is extra weird if you think about it. If telemetry is flat lining the Kenwood must send the same data over and over again. When I checked the settings I noticed indeed a static set of data was on the Kenwood and it did not seem to update anymore although the weather station was updating.

That (and the fact that it worked without problems for a few months) make me suspect the problem is in the Kenwood and it is not necessarily serial problems. So I turned the power off and disconnect the power supply for a minute or so. Turned everything on and waited until the first telemetry from the weather station was on the screen of the Kenwood again. Everything worked fine for a few hours and then same freeze happened again. And again.
So now I turned off the Kenwood permanently and I have to investigate this problem further. I already did check the serial levels from the Ultimeter. Those seem okay. I think I have to give the Kenwood a full reset. I know it’s possible, but I do not know how to do that exactly. RTFM!
On Twitter I read Matthew W2MDW also has TNC-problems with his brand new TM-D710G. Maybe there is a 2016-bug in its software? 😉

*update* found the problem; clocks of the Ultimeter and TM-D710 have to be on the same time. After a few months they where a few minutes apart. Then the time stamps on the APRS-packets gave errors and the TM-D710 doesn’t recognize the packets anymore. I guess I have the check and adjust time every month of both devices. Feels like I own a really old watch 😉

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Ultimeter 2100The weather station here at PA1JIM is running for a few months now and I’m perfectly happy with it. Only thing missing is a rain gauge and a humidity sensor. I didn’t want to have a separate rain gauge and a humidity/temperature sensor installed in two places. When I looked at the Peet Bros website I found the WSF-47000. A perfect solution for me; a combo of a rain gauge and humidity/temperature sensor. WiMo didn’t had the sensor in stock so they had to order it by Peet Bros in the USA. It took a while, but last week the postal service brought the kit! Just in time before a mild storm would hit the Netherlands, so I rushed up the roof to install it.
Overnight the storm hit and the first data from the rain gauge and humidity sensor where being collected. After I figured out the different settings, everything works splendid.
I’m completely satisfied with the current setup. The only thing that need a change now is I want to catch the packets from the weather station before they go in to my radio and store them in a database myself. But that’s a nice challenge for another rainy day.

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UV-shieldA few weeks now I run my own weather station, a Ultimeter2100 from Peet Bros. At least once a day I check my weather data against that from the neighboring Royal Dutch Meteorological Institute (KNMI). It turns out that my temperature readings are off a few degrees (too high) only in the morning. Which is not surprising when you consider my temperature sensor is attached to our chimney. This turn out to be the only place that has shade almost all day. Almost… But not in the early morning (only if the sun shines).
It seems I’m in need of a UV-shield for my temperature sensor. After visiting the local DIY-shop I sawed, I glued and painted… Some people asked me if I had build me a nice bird-residence, but no. It is an UV-shield! It’s a familiar construction for this application: because the strips overlap each other, the sun can not shine between. But the air can flow freely around the sensor. Which has two advantages: no warming up of the sensor by sun rays and no fast cooling down by water drops on the sensor when it rains.
My second comparing of data turned out way better, my UV-shield seems to work.