• Will It Affect My Weather Station?

    From The Incredible Bulk@21:1/5 to All on Mon Apr 1 13:38:00 2024
    Sorry to ask a question here as a non amateur radio user myself - I hope
    that OK?

    My next door neighbour is amateur radio user and has a single long
    horizontal wire stretching the length of his garden - about 30 or 40
    feet ish.

    I have never had problems of interference from him at all.

    I want to mount a Tempest Weather Station on a pole that by necessity
    has to be very close to the origin of this wire.

    This station sensors communicates with the hub (inside the house)
    according to the manual "via sub-gHz radio"

    The question is is a there a possibility of his transmissions
    interfering and or damaging my station.

    Many thanks and if I am asking in the wrong place please ignore me!

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  • From David Woolley@21:1/5 to The Incredible Bulk on Mon Apr 1 15:49:32 2024
    On 01/04/2024 13:38, The Incredible Bulk wrote:

    The question is is a there a possibility of his transmissions
    interfering and or damaging my station

    Interference is possible, but very unlikely from the aerial you
    describe. Damage is very unlikely, and would be the result of extremely
    bad design.

    Licence free radio equipment generally operates on the condition that it
    must accept interference from other radio users, so there can be no
    guarantee that it will operate reliably when any transmitter is being
    used nearby.

    Amateur operators are required to limit the power delivered to areas
    outside their control to levels considered safe for humans who are
    unaware of any risk. Humans are mainly sensitive to average powers,
    whereas electronics are sensitive to peak powers, but a long wire (in
    the sense you are using the term) aerial is unlikely to be used with
    peak powers much greater than average powers, so only poorly designed
    equipment should be at risk of damage. Any such equipment would
    probably not survive a nearby thunderstorm.

    Power levels that could be reasonably expected to cause damage would
    cause damage to other electronics. In fact that might be more
    vulnerable, if it isn't designed as part of a radio system.

    The likely operating frequency is 433.92 MHz, which is a frequency on
    which amateurs are also allowed to transmit, and sometimes licence free equipment uses very cheap receivers, which can be jammed from a wide
    range of frequencies. However, amateurs use those frequencies either
    with hand held, or vehicle based, equipment or with aerials which are
    either vertical or look like TV aerials. I would hope that most
    amateurs would stay clear of 433.92, so high quality receivers should be reasonably safe.

    If it can be damaged by hand held equipment, you need to create a guard
    zone around it in which mobile phones are banned.

    Basically, you are more likely to suffer from the sort of temporary
    problem that prevents car drivers using radio keys, than any permanent
    defect, and even that is unlikely to arise from the aerial you describe.

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  • From Brian Howie@21:1/5 to Incredible Bulk on Mon Apr 1 18:34:52 2024
    In message <KnSdned6xbc0N5f7nZ2dnZfqn_qdnZ2d@brightview.co.uk>, The
    Incredible Bulk <please.nospam@me.com> writes
    Sorry to ask a question here as a non amateur radio user myself - I
    hope that OK?

    My next door neighbour is amateur radio user and has a single long
    horizontal wire stretching the length of his garden - about 30 or 40
    feet ish.

    I have never had problems of interference from him at all.

    I want to mount a Tempest Weather Station on a pole that by necessity
    has to be very close to the origin of this wire.

    This station sensors communicates with the hub (inside the house)
    according to the manual "via sub-gHz radio"

    The question is is a there a possibility of his transmissions
    interfering and or damaging my station.

    Many thanks and if I am asking in the wrong place please ignore me!


    I had a look at Tempest Weather Station spec. It looks like for UK the
    data link is on 868MHz "sub GHz) , which will be well above the
    frequencies on the long wire antenna -typically 2MHz to 30MHz. Your
    Weather Station doesn't seem to use power cables, which would otherwise
    be prone to pick up the transmissions from the antenna, and of course
    there are no data cables,

    A search for RF problems to weather stations brings up the following,
    but that model seems to use data cables.

    Https://discourse.weather-watch.com/t/vantage-vue-suffering-rfi/70027

    A more thorough search might find something relevant to your model.

    I think your station would have to be very close to the end of the wire
    to be disrupted.

    Best to liaise with your neighbour to solve any issues if they arise.

    Brian
    --
    Brian Howie

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  • From nev young@21:1/5 to Brian Howie on Wed Apr 3 11:21:47 2024
    On 01/04/2024 18:34, Brian Howie wrote:
    In message <KnSdned6xbc0N5f7nZ2dnZfqn_qdnZ2d@brightview.co.uk>, The Incredible Bulk <please.nospam@me.com> writes
    Sorry to ask a question here as a non amateur radio user myself - I
    hope that OK?

    My next door neighbour is amateur radio user and has a single long
    horizontal wire stretching the length of his garden - about 30 or 40
    feet ish.

    I had a look at Tempest Weather Station spec. It looks like for UK the
    data link is on 868MHz "sub GHz) , which will be well above the
    frequencies on the long wire antenna -typically 2MHz to 30MHz.  Your
    Weather Station doesn't seem to use power cables, which would otherwise
    be prone to pick up the transmissions from the antenna, and of course
    there are no data cables,

    I have a Fine-Offset weather station that uses 868MHz to send data to
    the indoors display.

    The outside bits are attached to the base of the mast that has a 2m
    co-linear atop some 2m higher. But the anemometer and wind vane are at
    the base of the co-linear. Just above the house ridge tiles.

    If I xmit on 2m at > ~20W it kills the link and the indoor weather
    station display goes blank. QRP has no effect.

    About 5-10 mins after I shutdown the 2m radio, the weather station
    re-sysncs and is OK thereafter.

    YMMV of course.

    --
    Nev M0NFY
    It causes me a great deal of regret and remorse
    that so many people are unable to understand what I write.

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