Tag: Ultimeter

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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 2100An early birthday present this year: a Ultimeter 2100 from Peet Bros. I had my eye on one of these for a long time because it can do weather telemetry send on APRS. Ordered one from WiMo.
It arrived the other day (see unpack pics in gallery) with a German and original English manual. Fortunately for me because my German is not that good.
Did the glue-thing with the wind cups and test drive the weather station inside. All works fine. Then moved the sensors outside. Wind meter in my antenna mast and temperature sensor in the shade side of the chimney.
Next thing to do is connect the Ultimeter to my Kenwood TM-D710 so the telemetry can put on APRS. That seems quite simple. I put all the settings in and wait….. and wait….. 5 minutes…. 10 minutes…..an hour. No data in the Kenwood. Weird. Switched between I/O-ports on the Ultimeter. Wait….wait….nothing.
Reset the Ultimeter and did all configuration again. Plug the serial cable in it and a few minutes later: tadaaaaa! Weather station data on the Kenwood! That was last night. But after 2 or 3 beacons everything went dead again. No more updates received by the Kenwood. Also: weird wind values appeared on APRS.
But okay, maybe the Ultimeter suffers from RFI, maybe I need to change some settings. We’ll get there I hope! 😉 Anyway, a very cool birthday present!