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Author Topic: Sun Spots bother any of your X10 wireless lately?  (Read 3469 times)

mike

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Sun Spots bother any of your X10 wireless lately?
« on: March 22, 2015, 03:09:50 PM »

Having recently gotten into quadcopter flying with dji Phantom Vision2 Plus, I am concerned once again about sun spots. 

Years ago we would hop on the sun spot wagon to work all around the world on 10 meters ham radio when they were spewing forth big time in their 11 year cycle.  Now, heavy sun spot activity is watched closely by NOA (chart here:  http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/) and reported as the Kp Index, from 1 to 10.  Last week we had highest in many years with index hitting 8 on the scale.  You may have heard of it on the news with the associated Northern Lights being visible even into center of USA.... 

Well, I always blamed some mystery at WPAFB on my occasional X10 300mhz wireless transmitters not working some evenings....  Now I can blame the sun spots!  When the activity was so high recently, I could not get signal from at least 1 door switch and so could not set my alarm that evening. 

So I turn my blame from alien activity or weird RF testing at the air base to sun spots if my X10 won't communicate properly!  At least during the present 11 year high....

Anyone else have seemingly unaccountable trouble with switches not able to report in to their console recently?
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Tuicemen

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Re: Sun Spots bother any of your X10 wireless lately?
« Reply #1 on: March 22, 2015, 04:25:15 PM »

Humm  ::) :'  I did have a flood light that failed to turn off but figured it was one of the CFL floods creating noise. Replacing it with a LED solved that.
Maybe I didn't need a new bulb after all B:(
However I do have one security door sensor that constantly reports a low battery status to AHP even with new batteries installed ::) :'

Other then those two things everything is running the same here.
 >!
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dave w

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Re: Sun Spots bother any of your X10 wireless lately?
« Reply #2 on: March 23, 2015, 09:00:00 PM »

I think we need a community spectrum analyzer. 50kHz to 5gHz should do it.
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Brian H

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Re: Sun Spots bother any of your X10 wireless lately?
« Reply #3 on: March 24, 2015, 06:36:26 AM »

I have a low end RF Explorer WSUB1G Hand Held Spectrum Analyzer. Does 240 MHz to 960 MHz.
I may buy the accessory board to do  15 MHz to 2700 MHz.
http://micro.arocholl.com/

Not the most selective to use but I get some basic information with it.
When I set it to a sweep of 305 MHz to 315 MHz. X10 center 310 MHz. I do see lots of noise in my home.
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mike

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Re: Sun Spots bother any of your X10 wireless lately?
« Reply #4 on: March 24, 2015, 07:57:27 AM »

Sweet little machine Brian!  I'm stuck back in the '80's with my 10mhz-2ghz very low sensitivity input rf unit (not spectrum ana tho).
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dave w

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Re: Sun Spots bother any of your X10 wireless lately?
« Reply #5 on: March 24, 2015, 08:33:07 PM »

I have a low end RF Explorer WSUB1G Hand Held Spectrum Analyzer. Does 240 MHz to 960 MHz.
Thats very cool.
I was kidding with the 50kHz to 5gHz. But I remember back in the oldie days at Motorola (mid 70s) a wide band HP spectrum analyzer cost more than the neighboring homes.
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