W800 Adding a Second Antenna

[joeslat]

Jack,

Give yourself some credit - your advice is always good. Or it could be that we seem to have so much in common

I have a super-stable RF 800 setup; I am just now adding a DS10 to my mailbox, about 100 yards from the house. My 800 is in the attic and it reaches. I was asking these questions when I thought it might not reach because I was getting false readings. Then I found out that the contacts had fallen off inside the mailbox in the heat, and in fact my 800 has picked it all up (it's in the attic).

So, I ordered the antenna in a moment of weakness and I guess I'll just go ahead and install it when it gets here even though I don't seem to need it.

Joe

[jackpod]

Joe, I had the same thing happen, of course the last place I looked was in the mailbox. Stuart here on the board had an excellent suggestion. Use a hot glue gun. I have since gone around and "hot Glued" all 32 of my ds10a magnet sets. I haven't had a sensor fall off yet. You know they always fall off at the most inapropiate time, like 2 am and the system wakes you up in a panic. All my windows are vinyl and seemed like there was always one falling off. nice thing about the hot glue is it isn't that hard to take off if you need to


Jack

[jackpod]

Hey Joe, I just noticed we both joined the forum last July... interesting


Jack

[joeslat]

Good idea on the hot gun, thanks. [And all my events that 'should' happen during certain hours, like the mail arriving, are restricted to running during those hours, so I don't have to worry about night-time alarms.]

Joe

[jackpod]

I was going to do that but a couple weeks ago some wild kid hoodlums drove down a road a couple roads over in a pickup truck with kids in the back with a baseball bat and knocked down a bunch of mailboxes. I have mine set to turn on all the outside lights on the property and announce if the mailbox is triggered (or loses communication with the plugin) after dark. I have 15 500 watt halogens on the property. Out here in the country where there are no street lights and dirt roads, neighbors notice if my outside lights come on.


Jack

[joeslat]

Antenna Update

Got the Radio Shack antenna suggested in this post. For the institutional memory of the message board, a trip to RS required me to get the following to convert the Antenna Female PL259 to female F-type connector (jeez):

Qty 1, 2' PL259 extension cable, male to male
Female PL259 to BNC Female adapter
BNC Male to BNC Male adapter
BNC Female to F-type Male connector
(to RG6 cable originally connected to the W800.

I'll let you know how the antenna works. Thanks.

Joe

[jackpod]

Thats a lot of adapters! Years ago I had a spectrum analyzer that had pl259's and if memory serves me correctly, at that time they made a pl259 to F. I am curious to find out how it works