Davis ISS wireless signal - from ISS or repeater? **solved**

[Warb]

I've been working through the setup of a Meteobridge Pro, and I still have a strange thing happening with the signal from the ISS. As discussed in another thread, the construction of my house is massively detrimental to the radio signal from the ISS, with the result that I am forced to have a repeater about 10m from the house to get a signal to the Davis console.

The ISS signal, even with the repeater close to the house, is too low to provide a stable data flow to the Meteobridge with its factory antenna located inside the house. To overcome this I am using a 5dbi antenna mounted outside and cabled back to the Meteobridge. This works very well, but I have noticed a strange anomaly. Whenever the Meteobridge is booted up, it locks on to the ISS signal (logged as "transmitter 5 registered as ISS") with a signal strength of around -45db. However, without fail if I look again the following day (perhaps sooner, I've not monitored it closely) the signal strength has dropped to around -62db. Rebooting the Meteobridge results in the signal once again being reported as -45db, and then -62db the following day......

What is happening? My thought is that perhaps the Meteobridge is initially locking on to the repeated (repeater "A") signal, which should be stronger as it is closer, but then at some point it is swapping to the direct signal from the ISS. Is this possible? Is there a way to check whether the Meteobridge is receiving from station 5 directly or via repeater A?

Any thoughts greatly appreciated!

[admin]

It takes both. As Meteobridge has to sync into the sending interval, getting both signals might result in some drops. Reception will better if only data from the repeater is received. You might control this by the RF threshold settings... on the other side in most cases it should work fine anyway.

[Red Meteobridge Pro]

Have you thought about dropping the Sensitivity from the default -90db setting to -80db that is on the Primary Station tab to increase signal strength instead of using a repeater? I have had to do that on my Pro to solve signal issues. I have an older home that is stucco over concrete with interior plaster walls.