2014-09-01, 22:45
I have been looking into the signals I might expect from a RED system that is running as it should be. As I'm a newbie on Blitzorting I don't know enough yet how signals should look from a well tweaked system.
The self oscillation, as suggested by Richo Andersen, was already ruled out before sending my initial post. With more than 30 years experience as a hardcore builder of antenna's, transceivers, receivers and high power RF-amplifiers I do have experience tracing self oscillation in build configurations. It was clear that what I was seeing was man made noise / interference.
After a days rest I realised that I did not have enough background to analyse the live signals I was seeing when accessing the system through IP. Understanding what I was seeing should be the solution. So I started if I could find examples of live signals from a working RED system as there are none given in the manual. On www.wxforum.net I found a topic on Interference and Noise with some screen captures from interfering signals and they gave very good information how signals should look or should not look like. And.. the pattern what I had seen and interpreted as not good was there too.
It became clear to me that the system is way more sensitive than I expected. Moving the antenna through the house it's easy to get it into interference mode by getting close to the TV and other electronic stuff. The signal I was seeing comes from my neighbour and it switches on and off with his laptop computer. I'm convinced that his laptop will not be a problem any more when my antenna is looked outdoor about 20 meters over ground level.
It might be interesting for others to have a look at the examples of signals. When I look at the station list I see many stations sending quite large numbers of signals but with zero efficiency and that can be an indication that the system is not correctly set-up and might have man made noise and trigger signals that are not thunder related.
The URL for it is: http://www.wxforum.net/index.php?topic=20439.0
In the next week the weather in the southern part of the Netherlands will get better and the antenna will be placed in my antenna tower. I'm curious if all man made noise will be at an acceptable level and that the nearby solar panels (50-80 meters distance) will not cause to much trouble. On VHF I can hear them switching on and off when the sun rises and sets.
For those who are curious how I build the outdoor antenna I have made two pictures showing a solid but easy to build housing.
Regards,
Frank Veldhuijsen
[station 1152]
The self oscillation, as suggested by Richo Andersen, was already ruled out before sending my initial post. With more than 30 years experience as a hardcore builder of antenna's, transceivers, receivers and high power RF-amplifiers I do have experience tracing self oscillation in build configurations. It was clear that what I was seeing was man made noise / interference.
After a days rest I realised that I did not have enough background to analyse the live signals I was seeing when accessing the system through IP. Understanding what I was seeing should be the solution. So I started if I could find examples of live signals from a working RED system as there are none given in the manual. On www.wxforum.net I found a topic on Interference and Noise with some screen captures from interfering signals and they gave very good information how signals should look or should not look like. And.. the pattern what I had seen and interpreted as not good was there too.
It became clear to me that the system is way more sensitive than I expected. Moving the antenna through the house it's easy to get it into interference mode by getting close to the TV and other electronic stuff. The signal I was seeing comes from my neighbour and it switches on and off with his laptop computer. I'm convinced that his laptop will not be a problem any more when my antenna is looked outdoor about 20 meters over ground level.
It might be interesting for others to have a look at the examples of signals. When I look at the station list I see many stations sending quite large numbers of signals but with zero efficiency and that can be an indication that the system is not correctly set-up and might have man made noise and trigger signals that are not thunder related.
The URL for it is: http://www.wxforum.net/index.php?topic=20439.0
In the next week the weather in the southern part of the Netherlands will get better and the antenna will be placed in my antenna tower. I'm curious if all man made noise will be at an acceptable level and that the nearby solar panels (50-80 meters distance) will not cause to much trouble. On VHF I can hear them switching on and off when the sun rises and sets.
For those who are curious how I build the outdoor antenna I have made two pictures showing a solid but easy to build housing.
Regards,
Frank Veldhuijsen
[station 1152]