I kind of have an update, but on the RF efficiency thing.
Since I don't have any wires laying around other than UTP 4-pair CAT3 I used it to bring the power from the battery/charge controller to TX0 and I doubled up the wires so they could carry more current and have less voltage drop. I found one of the wires going from the battery to ground at TX0 was loose. I secured the ground and checked the other wires to make sure they were good. I also removed the ferrite cores from the wires of TX0. When I checked 144MHz the interfering signal was stronger with the ferrite cores removed. When I have time I will put the larger #61 UHF ferrite cores that I ordered on the wires and recheck.
Around the same time as fixing the loose ground wire, the new and larger UHF ferrite cores arrived. The new UHF ferrite cores were placed on the coax in the receiver box and I was pleased to find the RF efficiency went up a little. I've been watching it on and off throughout the day and now it seems to hover around 97-ish %. The idea of placing the ferrite cores on the coax is to act as a common mode choke. This is something I use with just about all of my antennas, but is possibly overkill on a weather station. I just wanted to see if it would help.
Since I don't yet have a WD the relay function is turned off.
Vid I made with my phone earlier.
https://youtu.be/AUDVW4DNPkw
I wish I had an extra rubber ducky to dissect. If it's not a vertical dipole then it still seems to work surprisingly well for a simple vertical with no counterpoise.
Since I don't have any wires laying around other than UTP 4-pair CAT3 I used it to bring the power from the battery/charge controller to TX0 and I doubled up the wires so they could carry more current and have less voltage drop. I found one of the wires going from the battery to ground at TX0 was loose. I secured the ground and checked the other wires to make sure they were good. I also removed the ferrite cores from the wires of TX0. When I checked 144MHz the interfering signal was stronger with the ferrite cores removed. When I have time I will put the larger #61 UHF ferrite cores that I ordered on the wires and recheck.
Around the same time as fixing the loose ground wire, the new and larger UHF ferrite cores arrived. The new UHF ferrite cores were placed on the coax in the receiver box and I was pleased to find the RF efficiency went up a little. I've been watching it on and off throughout the day and now it seems to hover around 97-ish %. The idea of placing the ferrite cores on the coax is to act as a common mode choke. This is something I use with just about all of my antennas, but is possibly overkill on a weather station. I just wanted to see if it would help.
Since I don't yet have a WD the relay function is turned off.
Vid I made with my phone earlier.
https://youtu.be/AUDVW4DNPkw
I wish I had an extra rubber ducky to dissect. If it's not a vertical dipole then it still seems to work surprisingly well for a simple vertical with no counterpoise.