Can anyone tell me why 5 independent wireless weather stations would all stop connecting at the same time?

when our wireless stations sporadically stopped showing sensor signals,
we relocated the sensors/station. that worked until it did not.
(we have only two: LaCrosse and Oregon Scientific)
we reset everything and they worked until they quit.
bottom line: insects were getting inside the sensors.
apparently, some insects LIKE electricity.

“There are a variety of insects that have an affinity for electrical hardware…”

https://www.google.com/search?q=wellstone+radio+jamming&tbs=li:1

https://www.google.com/search?q=air+force+radio+signal+garage+door+openers

Ya never know, the electronic smog is getting thick out there.

Thanks for all of the suggestions.

During the day today they all started picking up their signals again. Not all at once but over 12 hours or so.

I live in a rural area and no neighbors are too close. The hardware and batteries all look visually OK - no cracks, corrosion, bugs or water. Nothing new in the house. I have shut off individual breakers in the house but never all at once which is what I will try if this happens again.

This event started on Oct. 5 in the early AM EDT probably around 3:00 AM give or take an hour.

The event last year was on Sunday June 2 but I don't know the time. Here is a link that a friend sent me at the time that seemed like it could have been connected to.

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-06-02/did-government-just-test-internet-kill-switch

I know nothing about the site but it was interesting to see what supposedly happened at the same time.

I don't know the MHz but will check into it.

One or two or even three having problems at once might happen but five unrelated ones at the same time points to something other than the weather stations themselves. It just tough finding it.

Again, thanks for the ideas.

They are 433 MHz. I do have another one that is 900MHz that is working and has always worked great.

I had one stop and start working again back this spring around June.

Ooh, like the dreaded Rasberry ants…

Cheyenne Mountain, eh?

I don’t think it’s coincidence that opening the iris on the chappa’ai was done with a GDO (garage-door opener)…

Spiders are the constant enemies of accurate rainfall reports of my wireless stations.
Wife constantly belittles me with her mason jar totals.

I spray the post holding the rain gauge with Terro Spider Killer and it keeps the spiders from coming.

When it is raining hard the message on the display of the Davis station actually says "Its Raining Cats and Dogs".

420-470MHz it’s ham radio band in USA.
433.00-435.00 are Auxiliary/repeater links
Also 400MHz band is used for home security monitoring radio links, taxi repeaters etc. Those stations are using high power and can disrupt communication between weather station base and sensors even in 10-20km range because of low quality RF section in those devices.
Since it is ISM band you can do nothing about that except moving to 900MHz.
Mike

Maybe there is a signal jammer present there…trying to disable antitheft alarms…

Who knows…

I want to know finally what the issue is…

Ok, now THAT was funny! :smiley:

Yeah it has to be something to affect them all at the same time, such as a fast-moving storm front blowing thru and kicking off plenty of lightning. Such as exactly what happened at 2:53 AM on Oct 5th up there in snowbelt PA. i’ll take “Lightning EMI” for $100, and the Borg-beater for the win.

Lightning is something I had not considered but sounds like a real possibility. A look back shows we did have a small amount of rain then so lightning could have been in the area. But I still wonder about those Borg implants and their signals connecting to the collective.

My weather info is on weatherunderground here

https://www.wunderground.com/dashboard/pws/KPAMEADV16

I used to pickup up signal from our neighbors sensors. Not sure if your station can set different channels,
Some of the WS have a setting for CH1,2,3

That way you can figure out some of the interference.

Could be the election campaigns playing on the neighbor’s TV :wink:
Jokes aside, the same thing happened to me once. Since then, I use websites like Climacell or Meta weather to cross-check the info. My advice is to get an expert to take a look at them.

I have had another event when 4 of my outdoor weather sensors have lost communication with the indoor receivers. The weather was nice at the time so I can rule out lightning this time.

My bother pointed out to me that the Starlink constellation of internet satellites has began testing. Could that have any effect on my weather stations? I don't know enough about the satellites or radio waves in general to have an educated guess.

I live in a rural area with no houses very close and in a valley where even cellphones don't get good reception so I don't know where any other interference could be coming from.

Mystery solved.

One of my outdoor sensors had malfunctioned in such a way it was jamming the signals from the other sensors. As soon as I removed the batteries from it all the other stations started working normally. To confirm it the next day I put the batteries back in the defective one and the others lost their connections again. Took the batteries back out and everything was working normally again.

Ah, the dreaded “Babbling Idiot Mode”…

Back in the thinwire ethernet daze, a network card that would go into BIM would knock out the entire subnet with useless garbage, an unintentional DoS attack.

Interesting that it can happen wirelessly, too.

That's what tipped me off. The batteries in it started dying in a matter of weeks. So I thought it might have a problem but didn't figure it would affect the other ones. As a long shot I removed the batteries to see and I was very surprised and happy with the result.