Cumulus Support

New Year greetings to all. I have a strange wee glitch happening in my wind gust readings, and would be grateful for any help or guidance to fix it. I’ve had a good hunt through the forums, but haven’t found anything on this particular problem.

I’m running a La Crosse WS2355 weather station, and Cumulus 1.9.0, build 958. The weather station is wired, and connected to the PC via serial. "Use 10 min average" is checked, as is "Plot latest gust".

I recently moved the station from a country property, into town, and that was when this particular pattern began. When the average continuous windspeed drops below about 6kph, every so often I see a gust of 11.1kph or 11.2kph recorded. This even happens when the indicated windspeed is zero – flat calm!

At present this error only appears in the evening, overnight, and early morning, when windspeeds are light. As soon as the average speed rises above 6kph, gust registration becomes normal again.

Whilst its not a serious glitch, its got my curiosity going, and I’d love to pin it down and fix it.

Thanks in anticipation…….


George

You're absolutely sure that the gusts aren't genuine? It may just be the nature of the wind in your new location. If they are definitely false readings, it's possibly some sort of interference.

Thanks for the swift reply, Steve. I physically checked last evening, and on several occasions the anemometer cups were stationary, with an 11.1kph gust still indicated. I've been watching this pattern closely for a week or so, and it only seems to happen in the evening/night/early morning, so I think you've nailed it with your diagnosis of interference.

I suspect we have a radio ham operating somewhere in the reasonably immediate neighbourhood - I'll go and have a walk around and see if I can spot his aerials!

Cumulus is a great piece of software, and I really appreciate how easy it is to operate, compared to some of the "paid-for" software out there!

Many thanks,

George

TIP: Try wrapping three or four turns of the signal cable from the sensors through a ferrite core, close as possible to the station
no guarantees with this one
The UK 70cm Amateur Radio Band Covers 430–440 MHz and most UK 70cm repeaters output on 433Mhz
HERE is a list of UK 70cm repeaters see if there is one close to you
http://www.ukrepeater.net/70cm.htm
EX Radio Ham G8XTO

Thanks for the ferrite rod tip, Orion. I'm actually in New Zealand - but thanks for the thought!

Cheers,

George

hbweather wrote:I'm actually in New Zealand

Could you update your profile with your approximate location, please?

I have a WS2350 and suffered the same problem except that the gusts were up to 100 Km/h
The reason was as suggested previously, interference picked up by the telephone type cables used by LaCrosse.
I replaced the cable from the anemometer to the outside Temp/Humidity unit with computer network cable of Cat5 (twisted pair) specification. This cured the interference problem which I know is bad where I live. I also replaced the cable to the rain-gauge but this is possibly not necessary.
You could also try twisting the supplied cable but I have not tried that because I had some Cat5 cable available.
Try it and see,

Colin

hbweather wrote:Thanks for the ferrite rod tip, Orion. I'm actually in New Zealand - but thanks for the thought!

George, there are 70cm repeaters also in NZ (And AU). By the look of the lists they mainly transmit on 438Mhz.

North Island http://www.qsl.net/zl3vtv/pages/NZNI70cm.htm

South Island http://www.qsl.net/zl3vtv/pages/NZSI70cm.htm

BUT, the repeater input freq is 5Mhz lower so any amateur close to you using a repeater would most defiantly be transmitting around 433Mhz.

Replace both the cables as the interference will still get into the outside unit. I changed just onje and left the rain unit, it was better but still got the odd hit. After changing it as well I get absolutely zero hits now ever (this is almost a year ago).

OK, an update on this phenomenon, in the hope it helps anyone else with this weird problem...

After studying this for a little longer, a definite pattern has emerged. It only happens when wind speeds are very light, down around 5 - 6kph, and not gusty. The weather station (NOT Cumulus!) then "invents" a gust of 11.1kph from 337 degrees, always those same values. This happens every few minutes, and occurs at all times of the day or night. It'll even happen when the anemometer cups are stationary.

There are no errors occurring in either temp or rainfall, so I now suspect that this glitch is not due to external interference, but rather by reflection faults within the very long run of cable betwixt anemometer and console - I have 10M extensions on both cables, so a total of 40M.

The reason I suspect this is that once the console cable is unplugged, and the station goes on to wireless communication, the error vanishes. Of course, the refresh interval then increases, but that is less of a bother than regular silly values!

Thanks aus-city for the tip re replacing cables. Its possible that really good shielded Cat 5 cable would fix the problem, but for now I'm happy to leave it on wireless.

Hello everyone,

I think the problem is not the cable but the program Cumulus. had the same problem the program weather display in older versions. With the latest versions of the program display wheater the problem is gone. I use the weather station lacrosse program and the WS2355 Weather Display v 10.37Q and it works fine without problems of wind gusts

Cumulus with the Lacrosse weather station has a problem of temperature measurement.sometimes appear in the historical values maximum and minimum temperatures completely wrong.

Cumulus program would be a good program but it should solve the problem that the author. Again, the Lacrosse WS2355 Weather Station with Weather Display 10.37Q program works very well without problems of wind gusts and temperatures wrong.

Sorry for bad English

Very strange. I would have expected a lot more Lacrosse users reporting this problem?

I use a WS23-- as well and wind spikes were a major problem.
I changed the telephone wire to a shielded cable and no problems
with it or any software for years.
(touch wood)

Ron