Antenna for Boltek Stormtracker PCI

Hello,

Today the first few Thunders were heard for the season.
I checked my computer, but nothing was detected there.
Suddenly I understood that there were absolutely no response in the Lightning detection software Nexstorm from Astrogenic.
There are no errors, as far as I can see, but even if I disconnect the antenna, no alarm or warning.

Then I tried the Lightning/2000 V4 which I have not used for years. This one did not even find the PCI-card…
I have upgraded to Win10 64bit last year, I suppose Lightning/2000 is not being supported any more and might not have the correct Win10 drivers?

And checking at Boltek, I was not able to find any good News either that might help me, just bad; the PCI-card is not produced any longer, discontinued last year.

The antenna itself is warm as it always has been. When I have tested before, I just shorted a 1,5V battery close to the antenna, this gave before lot of noise, but today absolutely nothing. I also changed the cable without luck. :frowning:

Is there any way to test the antenna for Boltek Stormtracker?

Since the antenna is expensive, and this Boltek detector is discontinued, I would like to test the Antenna I have before spending close to USD 150.

If any Norwegians reading this and have Boltek system, I would like you to test my antenna on your system!

Regards

ts20

www.ts20.no

You can use a piezo electric sparker similar to this

https://www.amazon.com/Optimus-8018913-Sparky-Handheld-Piezo/dp/B00F5EUXDK/ref=sr_1_1?s=outdoor-recreation&ie=UTF8&qid=1496105282&sr=1-1&keywords=piezo+igniter

thats exactly what the shorted battery is doing.
What I would like to know, is how to test the antenna?
Which values, what kind of signals are sent in the ethernet cable?

ts20

That info has never been published AFAIK.

We can guess that you’ll have two (or three) pairs with balanced (so you can’t view them simply on a 'scope) low frequency RF signals. Maybe one pair used for the power feed to the antenna, but the power could also use the signal pairs. You could probably get some good clues by looking at components/tracks connecting to the RJ45 connector on the PCI card. An interesting academic exercise, but without a test spec and schematic I don’t think it’s a solution to the problem.

OK, seems that I must forget about this unit, since I do not know if the problem is the antenna (New: US$ 150) or the card itself.
The card is not produced any longer.
See if I can find someone here in Norway to swap the antenna or card, for testing…

ts20

#-o
Problem solved.

I think that the driver for this card has been disabled during an update of Windows 10, which I was not aware of:

64-bit versions of Windows 10 include a