Update on the WMR100N

Yesterday I was about to call technical support at Oregon Scientific, however reviewing their website (http://au.oregonscientific.com/service/faq.asp?t=1&cid=3) it recommends before contacting them to check their FAQ section, which I did. I found an interesting section that might be of interest related to my intermitant reception.

How can I effectively set up my weather station’s main unit with a sensor?

To get the optimum signal connections, the main unit and the sensors need to be “in line of site” within the specified range. Also the interference by other electronic equipment and weak batteries can cause drop outs or wrong readings.

 I thought: "That is odd, I didn't see that in the manual, I'll check again". Well I did check again and in the literature that came in the box with the installation instructions regarding positioning of the sensors it made no reference to the "line of sight" aspect, though at the end of the manual it says in the "Specifications" section it say in the "RF Transmission"  sub-section the the range is "up to 100 meters (328 feet) with no obstructions with no obstructions"

Being an Electronic Engineer specialist in Telecommunications, this might make sense, however one would normally consider that you would have the necessary sensors outside and the base equipment stations inside, that there would naturally be obstructions and that "line of sight" would be interrupted. Now in my house it is not like I have lead walls. The specified 433 MHz, within the microwave and more specifically UHF range, does have a reasonable amount of penetration power. My house is made of brick, but it is not very thick.

What I might try doing, is getting it as close as I can to Line of Sight and no obstructions, which is putting next to the window, however it doesn't sound right that I should be going that much out of my way for a simple weather station.

The second try, reviewing the WMR100N Weather Station.

After returning the WMR88 two days after purchasing it, I had to choose choose another option. The next in line was the WMR100N, which though had more capacity, 10 instead of 3 additional channels, as well as also coming with  all the necessary mounting equipment, it also came for 20 dollars less, for a total of AUD 249.00.

This was a bargain then... well again with some excitement, though not as much as the first time, I went back home with the expectation of now having a weather station that would work adequately.

Contents of the box, looking very nice and complete.

Again, I put in all the batteries in the sensors, pressed the reset buttons, put the batteries in the base station and pressed the reset button. Voila... things looked as if they were working better, it picked up the outside temp/hygro sensor, the anemometer and I tipped the precipitation sensor and it also registered!! Things could not be better at this stage.

I set up the mounting pole outside and installed the two sensors.

We can see the wind vane/anemometer and the mushroom looking thing is the temperature/hygromoter. I know that the location for the anemometer is not the ideal one, but is the best I have within comfort, and I really did not want to go to the effort of going on the roof after the failed attempt of getting readings with the WMR88.

So here we can see the display showing the information we are looking for, except well ... for the anemometer, no reading from that.

Over the next few hours and days I would continue to get intermittent data from the external sensors, and from the precipitation, none at all.

The data from the station was registered using the Weather Station Data Logger software, that is stored in a CSV format file. I have uploaded it to Google docs.
https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0ArEwIvQBUPQzdGJqYmhicTJZakhNbmZaa0RXdWpSWGc&hl=en_GB&authkey=CIiJk7wL

Screen capture showing temperature data, though not any info from the precipitation sensor in spite of it raining that same day. Also from 13:00 till 20:00 it only registered 4 noticeable temperature readings from outside.

I would discard the problem of intermittent data from the peripheral sensors, because even when one tries to disconnect the base station from the computer it does not affect the reception of data on the base station. I had thought that it might be a problem of low variation of temperatures or low wind speed, but I don't think that is the case. I would at this stage put it too defective telecommunications between the sensors and the base station. What about the distance? The sensors are located at about 15 meters, much closer than the 100 meters, stipulated in the manual.

Talking about the manual, this has no comments in relation to the intermittent reception.

Every so often I pressed the "search" button on the base station when it loses reception, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't do anything. Sometimes without pressing the "search" button it starts receiving again. It seems to have a mind of it's own.

So far I would say that I am semi satisfied, more on the unsatisfied side.

The evaluation I have to make now is if the data that this unit will be logging will be sufficient and adequate for the purposes of the research that I am doing. For now it seems a bit flaky.

Tomorrow I am going to call Oregon Scientific Technical Support in Australia to see what sort of service I will get. After reading the comments of the reviews on Amazon.com I don't have very high expectations.

My First Personal Weather Station

To be able to carry out the research as described in my project that is to measure and analyse the Effects of Indoor Plants on Temperature, it is necessary to be able measure and log both temperature inside and outside. Related to this it would also be relevant to be record other aspect such a humidity.

While I was walking through my local mall, the Westfield in Chatswood, I came across an Australian Geographic store that had in its window display a Weather Station, this is precisely what I needed. So I went in to the store and tried to inform myself as much as I could. I have worked with datalogging equipment before, apart from my experience in the Chilean Navy as an Electronic Engineer so I was pretty confident that the challenge would not be too big. Aside from the electronics aspects of the weather station itself, concerning the weather aspect was also something not too daunting either having several quite a few years as Office of the Watch on the bridge as well as Navigation Officer, and even as a Patagonian Channel Pilot for visiting foreign warships, it was my duty to have a keen lookout for the weather as well as registering in the log book the meteorological conditions, aside from taking pertinent and necessary actions.

Well of the 4 available suitable models available in the store, which where suited because the had a USB connection available to be able to connect the weather station to a computer that would serve as a data logger, I chose the WMR88 by Oregon Scientific, which was the second most economical one, and cost me AUD 269.00.

Excitedly I got back expectant to unpack, install and test my latest aquisition.

Review of the WMR88 Oregon Scientific Weather Station
To be honest I was not very impressed with this package, though it looked promising and pretty simple. The  box contained pretty much everything that is required for the station including the batteries for the peripheral sensors and the USB cable to connect to the computer, as well as the software.

The instructions are not that bad, one could even say clear, but one feels a bit underwhelmed, expecting a bit more, though it is pretty much simple in terms of setup. I would have appreciated a bit more on how the actual system worked in terms of the electronic telecommunications, though it might not be relevant to most, for the problems I was about to suffer it might have been.

Well, after putting in the batteries in all the sensors, I put the batteries in the station display unit and then connected the AC power to it. I was quite happy to see that the inside temperature was working, that eventually the outside temperature sensor was also displaying on the unit. I also tried the anemometer rotating the wind vane and seeing that it reflected on the display and rotating the wind speedometer. I tipped the rain bucket and saw that it also was communicating to the display. So far so good.

I installed the software that came with the unit, which is the Base Version of Virtual Weather Station by Ambient Weather, which loaded okay. So far so good. Problems started about now. One of the things that I was most interested in was in the logging of the data, I soon found out that to have that feature and to be able to access it in a CSV for spreadsheet I would have to pay at least an additional USD 70 !!! Not very happy about that. The other thing that I started observing apart from the not very nice interface, was that that no information would be displayed till it had connected to all selected peripherals, this was starting to be a nuisance. At this stage I started to notice that some of the sensor now had an intermittent communication with the base station, and they where right next to it. What I eventually did was deselect the sensors that had problems and then got a display.

I decided to investigate what other software was available and found that one that seemed often recommended was Weather Station Data Logger, currently in version 4.2. I downloaded it here: http://sourceforge.net/projects/wmrx00/ and installed without a problem. It started displaying instantly without a problem. It also had data logging to CSV with out a problem either. All this without cost!!

Well, being semi satisfied with the sensors and their working with the base station I ventured to install the anemometer on my roof attached to the TV antenna. I double checked that it was sending information correctly. Well after installing the anemometer, the base station stopped receiving from it.

I put the rain bucket outside, it being an ideal day as it was raining, as well as being windy, this is data from a nearby station as testimony http://www.wunderground.com/weatherstation/WXDailyHistory.asp?ID=INSWCHAT1&day=2&year=2011&month=1&graphspan=day. Well the rain bucket didn't transmit any more either after an initial transmission.

From here I tried everything to try and get the sensors to talk to the base station, remove and insert batteries, press reset buttons, on the sensors and base station, press the search button on the base station, everything was futile. In the end after several hours I gave up and left the base station connected to the computer to see if anything happened overnight. Alas nothing ever did.

I also looked on the internet to find any information that might be of help. The closest I could find were quite mixed reviews on a related product the WMR100 on Amazon.com (http://www.amazon.com/Oregon-Scientific-WMR100-Professional-Wireless/product-reviews/B000F4S5V2/ref=sr_1_29_cm_cr_acr_txt?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=1), some post were sort of helpful, at least to discount that I had tried pretty much everything.

At least though I had the log of the inside temperature and humidity, this was not enough though and had made up my mind to change the unit the next day.

So much for my first Personal Weather Station, to conclude, not very good and I did return it the next day.