Receiving Oregon sensors

[steve2xyz]

Hi there,

The chap next door has just got a weather station and it's easily within 100m line of sight. Immediately my RFXCOM receiver picked up transmissions starting 1a89... which is a WGR800 (anemometer + direction). The checksum is valid and the decoding seems to agree with nature (though I don't know what byte 5 - c0 might be).

But I can see there are two more sensors, at least a thermometer and I don't get any transmissions from those at all. Is this because they are unknown to the RFXCOM receiver? I'm initialising the RFXCOM into variable length mode like this:

RFX_ENABLE_ALL
RFX_DISABLE_ATI
RFX_DISABLE_HOMEEASY
RFX_DISABLE_IKEAKOPPLA
RFX_DISABLE_VISONIC
RFX_DISABLE_2VISONIC
RFX_ENABLE_VARIABLE

Is this a sensible initialisation sequence and would I be expected to pick up unknown Oregon sensor transmissions?

Thanks, Steve

[b_weijenberg]

Are those sensors within receiving range of the RFXCOM?
You say: "But I can see there are two more sensors" How?
Have you used RFreceiver to see if the sensors are received?

Bert

[steve2xyz]

Hi Bert,

Thanks for the reply.

I can optically see them! I can see the WGR800 and I can see two other devices on the same post in their garden. One of them looks like an Oregon Temperature/Humidity sensor and the other is pointing upwards like an Oregon UV detector. So yes, they are within range. I'm guessing that they are Oregon sensors, but given the WGR800, that would surely seem likely.

I can't run RFreceiver as I'm UNIX only.

I'll go and talk to them and see up close what the sensors are. But the idea of weather monitoring is that you don't go outside

Thanks, Steve

[drmacchi]

Wow a free weather station online ! May be the the neighbour didn't choose an address in the devices? (with internal selector) So they are all on the same address?

[steve2xyz]

Yes, free weather! That's a good thought about the sensor addresses, but I would then expect to see some garbled packets and I don't, everything seems perfect but from only one sensor.
I will pay them a visit and ask precisely what they've got.

Cheers, Steve

[b_weijenberg]

Steve,

It is possible that the Oregon sensors have a lower RF output and the range wil be less than the WGR800.
If the range is a problem you can connect a 70cm HAM beam antenna to receiver
Ask a family member or friend to visit you with a Windows laptop, install RFreceiver (is on the RFXCOM CD) and connect the RFXCOM receiver to the laptop.
This is the easiest way to see if the sensors are received by the RFXCOM receiver.

Bert

[steve2xyz]

I will do that, thank you.

Steve

[steve2xyz]

I have borrowed a laptop running XP and have pointed a TV Yagi at the weather station. RFreceiver picks up the WGR800 perfectly, but no other Oregon sensors at all. I will go round and ask them what sensors they have.

Cheers, Steve

[steve2xyz]

Hi Bert,

What does the RSSI button do in RFreceiver?

Thanks, Steve

[b_weijenberg]

nothing at the moment, this is for future use.