wshealy
Full Member
Posts: 187
Raspberry Pi: Yes
|
Post by wshealy on May 5, 2021 7:01:01 GMT -8
My internal antenna on my AQI works fine except the Sky2 base has to be very close. I have swapped to the external antenna several times and I get nada, nothing. No response. Do you know how boring it is to wait on a sensor that only responds every 10+ minutes while having to watch everything else scroll by. With my station offline all the while. Thank to grep for making it easier.
I have the external mounted. It is snapped to the connector in lower left of board. The antenna board is plugged in and oriented the same as internal was. The round silver crystal wire goes to pin 1 and the wire where antenna would have been goes to pin2 (of 4, the rx side is vacant.
Go take a nap and nothing.
Is there something that might fail here?
Swap back to internal and take a nap - 3 responses in 40 winks.
Advise? W
|
|
|
Post by doxidad on May 5, 2021 7:23:47 GMT -8
Just to let you know - I have a similar problem with my TB. Worked well with coil antenna up to about 20-25 feet (until coil antenna broke solder joint). After replacing with an external antenna - same thing. Would loose data if more than 20-25 feet. What is strange the dash status screen shows everything is good - but nothing is received and I can see the transmit LED flash every 12 minutes. So data is being transmitted.
Yet my weather station is 40 feet from my receiver and it works well + 3 Temp/Humid sensors throughout the house.
|
|
wshealy
Full Member
Posts: 187
Raspberry Pi: Yes
|
Post by wshealy on May 5, 2021 10:40:35 GMT -8
Sounds like we both have similar problems. W
|
|
wshealy
Full Member
Posts: 187
Raspberry Pi: Yes
|
Post by wshealy on May 6, 2021 7:58:11 GMT -8
BP, Any ideas? W
|
|
|
Post by SDL on May 8, 2021 8:20:33 GMT -8
Remember all of this wireless stuff is magic at some level or another (as I say this to my Ham radio friends that REALLY KNOW this stuff - I had one course in college on Electromagentics from which all my weak knowledge derives). It is almost always what is between you and the device and how you have the antenna placement. Dow's idea of a grounding plane under the SDR antenna is a good one (I know that much). Attached is a picture of mine in the lab. You will always see some drop out because of other sources of 433MHz (Noise - monitors can be bad - haven't noticed much from cell phones at 433MHz) and periodic loss due to random noise (try a drill!) and other 433MHz devices interfering. I'd put other devices at about a 5% loss here at the lab. AQI data notwithstanding. - Even without the grounding plane, we are receiving all five of our units (AQI, Lightning and Beta AfterShock) on a pretty regular basis. AQI with external antenna (~100%), Lightning with internal antenna (~70% - still no lightning storm - predictions were wrong), and the AfterShock with internal antenna (~40% - put in a bad position on purpose - 95%+ reception when not in a particularly bad position), and our two prototype SolarMAX2 units (LiPo and Lead Acid). I didn't notice much difference in adding the ground plane, but it should help. I'll move AfterShock this morning (which causes an Earthquake!) and gather some more data. - Putting things too close will saturate the receiver (although the SDR is better at handling that than cheaper receivers). Keep that in mind for really close tests. - Check to see the pins of the transmitter are slightly bent (back, forward, back) to make sure you are getting a connection. Weak connection = bad transmission - Make sure the wires are twisted together and plugged in correctly for the external antenna. Untwisted wires = bad transmission - Make sure you have the wires plugged in the correct place. Take note of the color of the wire attached to the top of the silver crystal on top of the TX Board. Run this wire to the pin on the left pin of the male pin header TX ANT (SL4). This is ground. Plug the other wire into the pin next to the first wire. This is the Antenna wire. wrong connection = probably NO transmission. If you get any transmission EVER, the TX board is probably fine and it is one of the things above. Remember, by FCC Law, these signals are not very strong. The system works but can be a little flaky depending on your local environment (metal studs = faraday cage = bad reception). Here are my partial results of the internal antenna test - which I should publish, but I didn't take enough notes. I have to rerun the tests. Sometime this summer. Every transmitter type is different (the WeatherRack2 for example). Here's my results for the internal antenna with the spring 433MHz antenna and the external antenna: The problem with my structured test, is that I am going through different walls, I need to go through free air to get a good comparison, but it is still interesting. John has written out the next test protocol. As he points out, you need to control one variable at a time to get good data from this kind of test. Remember this is statistical data and consists of 100's of packets for most of these numbers. Thousands for C, D on the production spring coil on the board. Range, %success (remember the walls that you are going through vary here - I didn't control for the angle) Internal coil antenna, out back of board (yes, I know, the production units have the coil out the front. Yet another reason to rerun the test). 1m, 87% 9m, 87%, 20m, 92% 50m, 90% External production antenna (433MHz, coil inside, connected through twisted pair to board then out UFL connector) 1m, No data (not run) 9m, 92% 20m, 86% 50m, 86% Now, you can see why I have to run the tests again. Generally, we feel the data is OK, but we didn't isolate the variables well enough, according to our PhD CTO. BP
|
|
|
Post by Jason on May 17, 2021 13:50:41 GMT -8
I'm continuing to struggle to get any consistent reception using the short range and long range antennas. Right now the two devices are sitting about 8ft apart in my office. Even at that distance, the short term antenna is getting picked up sporadically and the long range antenna is not getting picked up at all. The RPi 3B+ that I'm using to receive the signal is currently only looking for devices 148, 150, and 151 so as to avoid noise from the rack and indoor sensors. I'm monitoring the serial console with the rig hooked up directly to my MacBook and can see it producing output that is getting transmitted while simultaneously monitoring what is being received by the radio antenna. When I add in the rack and indoor sensors to the radio setup, I see a ton of data flowing. Unfortunately, none of it is from the wireless dust sensor.
Thanks,
Jason
|
|
|
Post by SDL on May 17, 2021 18:18:58 GMT -8
Something is not connected. Check the cables and make sure your 433MHz transmitter board is plugged in well. Make sure the external antenna wires are twisted together.
Look at my data above carefully. This stuff does work!
BP
|
|
dow4hurst
Full Member
SkyWeather2 Newbie
Posts: 117
|
Post by dow4hurst on May 17, 2021 19:47:57 GMT -8
If your cell phone can manage USB host mode with an OTG cable, you might be able to hook up a SDR to measure signal strength with the RF Analyzer app. I will be testing my Google Pixel 4XL to see if it will work as soon as my OTG cable arrives. If it works, then this will be a poor man's tool we can use. Dow
|
|
|
Post by Jason on May 18, 2021 6:13:37 GMT -8
Here is my current wiring. The RPi and SDR are currently about 11 ft apart in our kitchen with minimal noise. As you can see, I've removed the solar completely. Additionally, I've bent the pins as well as made sure the antenna connected using pliers. I'm not getting any hits at all on the broadcast messages. Thanks, Jason
|
|
|
Post by SDL on May 18, 2021 6:58:36 GMT -8
If your cell phone can manage USB host mode with an OTG cable, you might be able to hook up a SDR to measure signal strength with the RF Analyzer app. I will be testing my Google Pixel 4XL to see if it will work as soon as my OTG cable arrives. If it works, then this will be a poor man's tool we can use. Dow Dow, Sounds like an excellent idea for a column. Really excellent. John
|
|
|
Post by SDL on May 18, 2021 6:59:24 GMT -8
Here is my current wiring. The RPi and SDR are currently about 11 ft apart in our kitchen with minimal noise. As you can see, I've removed the solar completely. Additionally, I've bent the pins as well as made sure the antenna connected using pliers. I'm not getting any hits at all on the broadcast messages. Thanks, Jason View AttachmentView AttachmentView AttachmentJason, Do you have another 433MHz transmitter board to swap out? If not, send me your shipping address and I'll send one to you. BP
|
|
wshealy
Full Member
Posts: 187
Raspberry Pi: Yes
|
Post by wshealy on May 18, 2021 7:12:30 GMT -8
BP, How many of us are using the external? I went back to the internal when I got no data. W
|
|
|
Post by Jason on May 18, 2021 7:15:01 GMT -8
I'm currently using a second board and third antenna. I've got one more unused board that I'll load up and try.
Thanks,
Jason
|
|
wshealy
Full Member
Posts: 187
Raspberry Pi: Yes
|
Post by wshealy on May 18, 2021 7:27:21 GMT -8
I don't have but the one. W
|
|
|
Post by SDL on May 18, 2021 7:36:04 GMT -8
I don't have but the one. W Check your Lead Acid SolarMAX2 package we sent you. Same board. BP
|
|