Newbie intro and thanks!

Howdy gents, I live in Alaska and I’m a weather junkie. There, I admit it. The first step toward healing? :lol:

Anyway, I have a Vantage Pro since about 12 years ago. It’s a lovely beast and has worked flawlessly. I live high in the mountains and we get crazy winds, 100mph is common, and it just keeps working.

Until the Summer of the Squirrel.

Yes, I have the Squirrel from Hell and he is doing everything to get inside my shed. Unfortunately that shed is where my VP is sited. I could tolerate his antics, until he chewed my anemometer wire in half! That bloody little monster. :x

It’s a simple 4-conductor wire so I reconnected and taped everything and I’m getting wind signal again. But now I have weirdness.

My weather direction doesn’t correspond to the direction of the vane nor its movement. I’ve recalibrated it until the cows come home and it refuses to act like it used to before the GSC (Great Squirrel Caper). Wind speed however is just fine. Yes I reconnected the 4 color strands correctly and securely.

Now I notice I get a lot of dashes on my display, like it’s missing data. These are the readings from the ISS. If I wiggle the inside antenna, like I’m wiping the contacts, no change. If I enter Setup and toggle thru all screens then DONE, it comes back. The “X” blinks and all is well. But then later the dashes are back.

I just now read about turning on “Gain” so I did that. But I’m wondering… can it be the battery in my ISS is dying? I have never replaced it. :oops: Yes, in 12 years it still works fine. … until that bloody squirrel.

I cannot ignore the coincidence this all started when he chewed my wire in half. Surely that can’t have killed my battery capacity somehow?

Anyway, thanks for the great weather site! I hope someone will chime in with advice about my elderly yet still functional setup.

All the best from the arctic,
Nanuq

Welcome!

Wow, 12 years on the original battery 8O Yes, first step to troubleshoot this problem is to replace it. It’s not a rechargeable battery, it just provides backup power for when the solar panel isn’t producing enough so it’s very surprising that it has held out so long where you are.