CQ CQ Radio Hams .. wired or wireless system for Davis Vantage Pro2 ???

Any amateur radio operators using the wireless Pro2?
I am looking at purchasing a Pro2 would my radio transmissions affect the wireless version, I could use wired. what size is the plug on the end of the wire? (as I already have hole through my wall into my study) would I have to remove the connector?
Also am I ok with USB connection to PC with Windows XP?. all my com ports are in use.
Any help much appreciated
G3OZN

What bands and power do you run?

The all the connectors are RJ11 phone connectors, I don’t know about the UK but you can get very cheap crimp tool and connector sets here to re-attach those if you have to cut one off (but remember the color coding).

Some small number of users have had trouble with the USB.

I used to run a wired groweather station and run 200W ssb/cw at HF into a 7 element yagi with no problems at all, today I run a VP+ (wireless) but no ham radio (lost interest after nearly 40 years (too many “experts” lol)) Considering the wireless link runs at around 960Mhz and at around +12Dbm I would suggest the opertunity for interference from your equipment is high, I would suggest cabled would be the most sure fire deal, (at least you can decouple that if you have a problem). however bare in mind that going cable will restrict your sensor options. As a side note, I think I would consider using screened cable at least on any long runs. hope this helps.
Personally I would go with serial, there has apparantly been problems with USB but these problems may have been resolved certainly in one case by ensuring your PC was using USB2.
Cheers
Geoff
Ex G3VTF, VK2BAD, P29ALH, VK3FES.
.- .-.

Morning Chaps,

I’ve been thinking about this quite a lot recently, I’m running a Hyundai WS-05 which I think is a WS 2310 clone and have had no problems at all with it’s 433MHz wireless operation. My RF environment is rather busy here as I operate virtually all HF bands at >100W and additionally use a wireless lan, wireless cctv and cordless/mobile phones everywhere.

The answer may well lie in Nikosheperds question, if you are running lots of 70cms (430MHz) or possibly 2m/23cms (even 32cms for our stateside friends) then I would avoid any of the various wireless options. However if you are operating on HF then wireless could be far more immune than cabled.

This may seem to counter logic but go with me !

The cabled option could provide a huge loop area and without doubt will offer a complex set of resonances in the HF bands with could lead to RF currents coupling into the cables and where the is current a voltage will appear eventually. The RF current/voltage has to go somewhere and that is what will cause the problems. Screened cables have been correctly indentified as a possible solution, but you will have to bond the screens down somewhere for them to perform, and well screened “RJ” connectors a very rare beast.

Wireless has less of these problems you simply need the data reciever to have good out of band performance (out of band by >400MHz in my case) and it provides complete isolation between “indoors” and “outside” which may be more comforting when considering lightning protection.

Just my view,

Richard…

Good analysis, I don’t think these are very sophisticated RX’s so I’m worried about just overwhelming it with RF too.

Hi Nikoshepherd,

That’s a very good point, although the performance of licence free radio hardware has improved a great deal over the last few years, particularly if it complies with the european specifications for radio type approval.

If the radio link is in a high RF environment then the effects would problably manifest themselves as an apparent reduction in useable range.

One interesting though, in a typical ham radio environment there may be very high fields present but they would be transient in nature and have a high “off” to “on” duty cyle, some clever software/hardware design in the weather station could allow data to be sent when the link is viable and ignore the lost packets (or even hold them for retransmission) when the link is untennable. I’m not sure how clever current weather station technology is, but these techniques are common in other high integrity systems.

I would be interested to find out what modulation and “spread spectrum” techniques are used in the Davis Vantage Pro station, the more I learn about this stuff the more I think that the Vantage Pro has to be the way to go.

All good stuff,

Cheers,

Richard…

g3ozn - nice to see you here.

I would recommend you get a PCI card with an extra com port or two to be guaranteed no communication problems between the wx station and pc.

The UK version VP2 frequency hops in the 868 to 868.6 MHz ange, using about 5 frequencies. The US version is 902 to 928 MHz and has more hops but I forget the number. My guess is that they are using a cordless phone chipset. The old version used a single frequency and sent a burst of on-off keyed carrier every 2.5 seconds, I don’t know what the modulation is for the VP2.

Many thanks you good folk for your replies, much appreciated.
I have took the plunge! It looks like I have ignored most advice ( not to be contrary though!) and gone this way!..
Ordered this morning Vantage Pro2 wireless (the supplier has agreed to swap me for the wired version for just transport costs if I run into trouble with RF interference), with USB Weather Link.
My PC is USB2 and I have 3 ports spare, ISS sender will only be about 42ft from the console
All my antennas are balanced, horizontally polarised, up at 60ft and coaxial fed, I transmit a maximum of 100watts from 1.8Mhz -28Mhz (and rarely) about 50 watts on 144Mhz and 35watts on 70Cms vertically polarised to a colinear antenna.
I will keep you all informed of outcome.

Thanks for the info nikoshepherd, sounds like a fairly well thought out system. I wonder when the first bluetooth or wifi weather station will appear on the market, using it’s own ip address and “web based” config/display app. that you surf to with IE or similar ?

To G3OZN, Good luck with your VP2, and a sensible response from your supplier too.

Cheers,

Richard…

I think you can forget bluetooth because of the limited range which I believe is 30 feet. wifi would be nice though and there’s a thread on here somewhere about modifying a linksys wap to work as a remote station.

All up and running, just a struggle installing the drivers for the USB Weatherlink which was probably down to the CD/DVD drive being akward? everything works fine, including the wireless ISS suite.
NO interference on any amateur radio band I use (1.8Mhz-70Cms) at full power SSB; CW;PSK31;FM , not tried Ancient Modulaion (AM) yet!
Anemometer is up at 23ft and in the clear, quite amazed last night to record a gust of 21 MPH whilst I was watching the console.
One query though one of you experts might help a greenhorn with…my Longitude setting should be 1:06:01 W (put another way according to a web site that does conversions -1.1004, the setup will not accept “0” before the 6 & 1 hence it sets as 1:0:0 and the console as 53.3N & 1:0:0.
Just a thought I suppose I am East of the line, slightly?
All comments gratefully received.

What about the other way round…can you hear the VP2 signal on any band? I’ve not heard my WMR928 on any band, although I have to admit that I’ve not been active much in the last 12 months!

It’s difficult to hear the VP signal even on a scanner tuned to the exact freq (916.5Mhz in the U.S.).

It’s just a little click or short burst every 2 1/2 seconds. I just tried it and couldn’t get it. I forgot what I did before, switched to wide FM with the squelch turned down or something? Whatever it was I can’t get it now.

[quote author=Jarron link=topic=10273.msg77245#msg77245 date=1122670894]
It’s difficult to hear the VP signal even on a scanner tuned to the exact freq (916.5Mhz in the U.S.).

It’s just a little click or short burst every 2 1/2 seconds.

Obviously my previous post was for the VP1.

Have you tried the lat/long FAQ? http://discourse.weather-watch.com/t/9974

I’ve been running both Hf and Vhf up and down the dial and have not noticed and abnormal activity with my VP2 wireless.
Kris

I contacted Davis before I bought mine. They said to use a WIRED one as they use multiple frequencies with their wireless one.

Fran