Blitzortung.org Forum

Hello everyone and season greeting. Up to the 4th of December everything was running good for station 2916 since it was installed. I've done just about everything I know and what fund on the forum but the problem still stays. Good number on totals and valid but nothing on involved and used, manual mode. Thresholds around 110mv and noise around 45 to 48mv. My green station is running still good for over 10 years.
Regards
Petros

Yeah, looks weird from 4th of December onwards. That straight bue line (percentage used of total involved) is particularly odd.
Never seen anything like it.

Could it be that your station was very close to lightning on 4th of December> Maybe that messed up the counters.

Petroska, looking at your signals page, it appears that round about December 4 there are a lot of Bad GPS signals. (Dark blue vertical lines in attached picture). Your station did not seems to recover from that.

Thank you both for your comments, the bad gps signals are on the 5th when I did restart the board and till the gps picks up signals again it leaves those blue lines (bad gps signal) they appear further down at other dates when I restarted the board a few times. After the 4th when I noticed that there was something wrong I did a lot of changes to the settings trying to get it back, till now that I've run out of ideas.

Can you post a screenshot of the GPS status from the Status and Settings pages please.

Ok, here is a screen shot of the gps and a shot of the debug page, some alignment error shows, but I don't know what the problem could be.
Thanks

Yes, this is strange. GPS seems to functioning just right.
I have those ADC alignment errors as well.

Sorry, for now I am also out of ideas as well, lets wait for input from others.

(2024-12-29, 23:52)dupreezd Wrote: [ -> ]Yes, this is strange. GPS seems to functioning just right.
I have those ADC alignment errors as well.

Sorry, for now I am also out of ideas as well, lets wait for input from others.

I see a couple of possibilities.... signal quality.

First, controller: to  SEND series, the trigger (threshold) in triggering channel must be at least TWICE the noise level in that channel.  That is, the  ADC trigger MUST be at least twice as high as the noise level .e.g. 100mv threshold against 55 mv noise level won't trigger a send. THEN  IF the 'ignore signals below' percentage is too high, say 90%, controller should ignore any signal <90mv, even if ADC has triggered on another channel.

THEN:
Once received at computing server, IF a channel's 'signal' amplitude peak is NOT at least 3 times the SERVER computed noise level average over first 250ms of that channel's window, the server will NOT compute the channel.

[attachment=4912]

You have a LOT of  noise, both low frequency (Power mains??) and other faster signals. I believe they're likely culprits killing your signal recognition.  I watched a few minutes, didn't observe any obvious 'sferics', just noise, so your stats look about right for what I saw... .
I think the above image indicates the controller fired on 'red' channel, sent all, then 'server' actually wanted the 'green' channel, but 'green' failed test 2, (250ms noise/amplitude at trigger time  of 'red') so 'validated' 'red' channel, but couldn't associated data with any strokes.   So "Signals =1" "Valid"=1 "Involved"=0 "Used"=0 for this signal.

ALSO note your sieve timing adjustment excellent for Red and Green channels... that's the "DNA" for the last 1000 signals, which indicates most of your sieve memory matches this noise signal pretty well, indicating it's holding a LOT of noise signals, so will take a bunch more strokes to overcome that junk 'bias' in your station's genetic picture! Especially since it REALLY had to 'retime' the 'yellow' channel data!

Good Luck!
Mike

(2024-12-30, 06:34)cutty Wrote: [ -> ]

(2024-12-29, 23:52)dupreezd Wrote: [ -> ]Yes, this is strange. GPS seems to functioning just right.
I have those ADC alignment errors as well.

Sorry, for now I am also out of ideas as well, lets wait for input from others.

I see a couple of possibilities.... signal quality.

First, controller: to  SEND series, the trigger (threshold) in triggering channel must be at least TWICE the noise level in that channel.  That is, the  ADC trigger MUST be at least twice as high as the noise level .e.g. 100mv threshold against 55 mv noise level won't trigger a send. THEN  IF the 'ignore signals below' percentage is too high, say 90%, controller should ignore any signal <90mv, even if ADC has triggered on another channel.

THEN:
Once received at computing server, IF a channel's 'signal' amplitude peak is NOT at least 3 times the SERVER computed noise level average over first 250ms of that channel's window, the server will NOT compute the channel.



You have a LOT of  noise, both low frequency (Power mains??) and other faster signals. I believe they're likely culprits killing your signal recognition.  I watched a few minutes, didn't observe any obvious 'sferics', just noise, so your stats look about right for what I saw... .
I think the above image indicates the controller fired on 'red' channel, sent all, then 'server' actually wanted the 'green' channel, but 'green' failed test 2, (250ms noise/amplitude at trigger time  of 'red') so 'validated' 'red' channel, but couldn't associated data with any strokes.   So "Signals =1" "Valid"=1 "Involved"=0 "Used"=0 for this signal.

ALSO note your sieve timing adjustment excellent for Red and Green channels... that's the "DNA" for the last 1000 signals, which indicates most of your sieve memory matches this noise signal pretty well, indicating it's holding a LOT of noise signals, so will take a bunch more strokes to overcome that junk 'bias' in your station's genetic picture! Especially since it REALLY had to 'retime' the 'yellow' channel data!

Good Luck!
Mike

Thank Mike,
After reading your post and looking again on the signals I saw only the red channel registering, so something is wrong with the antenna, today the weather improved so I got up on the roof.
Sure enough there was not power to the preamp, I was pretty sure that the cable was ok since it was good quality cable, any way I put a new cable again and every thing looks good. Thanks everyone for your responses.

Regards
Petros

...

(2024-12-30, 14:03)PetrosKa Wrote: [ -> ]Thank Mike,
After reading your post and looking again on the signals I saw only the red channel registering, so something is wrong with the antenna, today the weather improved so I got up on the roof.
Sure enough there was not power to the preamp, I was pretty sure that the cable was ok since it was good quality cable, any way I put a new cable again and every thing looks good. Thanks everyone for your responses.

Regards
Petros

Arrgh,... You have lots of junk signals! Several varieties.
Thoughts:
Is that net cable to preamp SHIELDED? 
Make sure using UNSHELDED from controller to router!
Is preamp or controller connected to any ground? Suggest no ground.
How's your 5v main power supply?
Any solar power devices , electric fences, power converters, nearby?
...may need to do 'walkaround' with off-station AM radio and, hopefully, track down noise...

May have to tell Hermes he's grounded till he resolves St. Elmo's Fire issue with Winged Sandals and Salty Humid Aegean Air... ?

(2024-12-30, 18:24)cutty Wrote: [ -> ]...

(2024-12-30, 14:03)PetrosKa Wrote: [ -> ]Thank Mike,
After reading your post and looking again on the signals I saw only the red channel registering, so something is wrong with the antenna, today the weather improved so I got up on the roof.
Sure enough there was not power to the preamp, I was pretty sure that the cable was ok since it was good quality cable, any way I put a new cable again and every thing looks good. Thanks everyone for your responses.

Regards
Petros

Arrgh,... You have lots of junk signals! Several varieties.
Thoughts:
Is that net cable to preamp SHIELDED? 
Make sure using UNSHELDED from controller to router!
Is preamp or controller connected to any ground? Suggest no ground.
How's your 5v main power supply?
Any solar power devices , electric fences, power converters, nearby?
...may need to do 'walkaround' with off-station AM radio and, hopefully, track down noise...

May have to tell Hermes he's grounded till he resolves St. Elmo's Fire issue with Winged Sandals and Salty Humid Aegean Air... ?

Yes I know about the noise I get during the day, it comes from the inverter of the solar panels. When weather permits it I try to relocate the antenna.
The cable to the preamp is FTP CAT6 PET, no ground connected to any antenna system and the patch cord from controller to router is UTP. The power supply is this, I don't know if it's good enough.
Thanks Mike.

Noise level on the V_in power supply looks good (low) in the attached picture.