Ambient Information Network - Datacasting Service

[skybug]

Hi Mike, I saw your message before I went to work this morning, I was like, ok, I'll read this one when I get home, this was alot to read, but good to read. On my unit, I can step thru all the major cities in the USA and see the current temps and forecasts. My units display changes color according to the outside temp its currently at. Not sure on the address and PDW, never worked with it before but have read articles about it, etc. My AC adapter doesn't have those numbers. But I will search the sites and see which ones come up with whats shown on my display. It does say Accuweather on the back where the power cord is plugged into.

 

[Michael-SATX]

Skybug,

Wow sure enough by what you said and also reading the owners manual it does say you can step through by state then by city !
My question since I have never worked with this model is can you step thru all 5 local cities data screens that are broadcast on your tower ?
I would think your Massachusetts towers send WX forecaster for BOSTON MA, CHATHAM MA, SPRINGFIELD MA, WORCESTER MA + 1 more ?
So just to be clear there should be no way you could step through and select say San Antonio, TX and actually view our weather forecasts ?

btw - Another forum user reports finding the older non color changing Bushnell 5- Day 950005 units at Walmart for only $24 each !!!
He regrets only buying 6 for gifts and not their entire stock. I want Bushnell 7-Day 950017C w/wind speed/direction,uv,pollen,messages,etc.

ps - Just in case you don't have the owners manual ?

https://www.bushnell.com/content/non_product/support/customer_service/Product%20Manuals/Outdoor-Technology/PDF/950013-950015-950017WeatherFX.pdf

From what you described it sounds like your Bushnell WeatherFX5 - 5 Day forecaster M/N# 950015C as pictured below:

 

[kjsorenson]

Just saw this. Thanks.

I'll go over it and comment in a bit.

I built a 12 element yagi for 929.6625, but first try did not generate enough RF to key the decoder. I can peak the pager on 929.6125 by turning the antenna, but the weather here was atrocious yesterday and I could not position the antenna outside and away from the house. More work on that today.

What I have managed:

1. Took the weather station apart and threw away the case. I will rig up something appropriate later.
2. Frequency 929.6652 MHz was on a label on the pager board as expected.
3. The board is not the board shown in the development kit doc. Can't determine who made it.
4. The board has two labeled unused solder points for serial comms in and out.
5. Found that the 16 inch gray wire that had come loose inside the case had been attached to the loop antenna
6. on the pager board. It may have been that this wire worked its way loose while in the hands of the last owner and they figured the unit was broken. There is a solder connection for the wire antenna.
7. By peaking (still too weak) the third signal that appears on 929 to 930 here I have determined that it is in fact 929.6652 and there is much much less traffic on that channel than on the 929.6125 (500 Hz separation). The former is for Local One Way Messaging and the latter is for Nationwide Messaging. Having no way to adjust the SDRplay for frequency offset, I used my HP-3336B sig gen to give me a harmonic at 900 MHz that I could refer to. The SDR is about 700 Hz. out.

So some progress has been made. I think you'll find that your pager receiver inside the weather station does not have the leds, but probably has the pin outs for them - I have not looked. It would be cool to get them working as well as you suggested.

I will take a more detailed look at your last post re the strings.

Thanks,
Jim

 

[kjsorenson]

Skybug,

Wow sure enough by what you said and also reading the owners manual it does say you can step through by state then by city !
My question since I have never worked with this model is can you step thru all 5 local cities data screens that are broadcast on your tower ?
I would think your Massachusetts towers send WX forecaster for BOSTON MA, CHATHAM MA, SPRINGFIELD MA, WORCESTER MA + 1 more ?
So just to be clear there should be no way you could step through and select say San Antonio, TX and actually view our weather forecasts ?

btw - Another forum user reports finding the older non color changing Bushnell 5- Day 950005 units at Walmart for only $24 each !!!
He regrets only buying 6 for gifts and not their entire stock. I want Bushnell 7-Day 950017C w/wind speed/direction,uv,pollen,messages,etc.

ps - Just in case you don't have the owners manual ?

https://www.bushnell.com/content/non_product/support/customer_service/Product%20Manuals/Outdoor-Technology/PDF/950013-950015-950017WeatherFX.pdf

From what you described it sounds like your Bushnell WeatherFX5 - 5 Day forecaster M/N# 950015C as pictured below:

View attachment 80673

Hi Skybug,

As I understand it you can only step through the 5 cities that are calculated to be in your range. That probably means that if you look at your location on the map you should be closest to those 5 cities. If you take the device to Los Angles, for example, you'll see the five cities there that are transmitting on 929.6625 and are closest to LA. The 6th optional city you have to pay for. But at this point we don't have anybody to pay as far as I can see. This all assumes that you registered your device with Bushnell or Ambient, or Brookstone and have been entered into a database that contains your personal info and your serial number. I am assuming that the weather data gets transmitted on all national towers for each user no matter where he is at the time. Then it follows that if you were to be at a location near Los Angeles and are receiving data from a tower in Los Angeles, that tower would include data from 4 other cities clustered around Los Angeles. I'm just thinking this through out loud, so don't trust me on it. So it does not matter where I buy my device, if I can pick up one tower anywhere I will also get in my data packet the weather from the next 4 closest cities.

I will check our Walmart and see if they have any stock. I would certainly pay $24 for any device that accesses the network. BTW - the Brookstone station has an extremely heavy and over sized case for the electronics involved. That was probably to make it waterproof and readable from a distance. I just tore mine apart and am throwing away the case. Apart from the 10 x 10 glass which is in front of the display leds?, all you have are two batteries (3 volts) and the two boards which are about the size of a credit card and half an inch thick. If I get it running again, I will repackage it and add external power.

All for now. Thanks
Jim

 

[kjsorenson]

Q= Jim, you asked about how I know that various CAP Codes have been deleted from the Ambient database over the years ?
A= Their Ambient PDF states these devices have unique serial numbers (CAP Codes) that enables Ambient Devices through their AIN
to individually address a particular device. Serial numbers are assigned by Ambient Devices and registered with the Ambient database.
Further, we know many series of devices have been de-authorized ie my 2 RS 63-1085 5 day WX units, Ambient's Stock Market Mavens,
Ambient's WX color changing Orbs, Bushnell's 7-day Golf Course WX forecasters and Bushnell telling their customers all their units will stop.

Q= Jim, do you have a friend or co-worker in 929.6625 coverage and they can try your Brookstone unit at their house and report back ?

Q= Skybug, when you can, sit by you Bushnell FX5 and while online, go to various website like AccuWeather, Weather Underground, etc
see what matches your device display data. In SATX my AIN data does NOT match up AccuWeather, so is the source ambientweather.net ?
But nevertheless I am happy and just 1 of 2 degree's off from AccuWeather (dot) com so to me it's good enough for government work

Q= Jim, try to attach either a single external antenna wire antenna to the built in exposed flat copper PCB antenna elements (s) try each ?
btw - My Brookstone unit has no 16-inch wire anywhere, just 2 wires to a piezo buzzer for hazardous weather warning and 2 battery leads.

Q= Jim, what service do you think provides that other weather conditions info we both see in PDW decodes - pilot or public safety related ?

Q= Jim, checked out your link to the FCC License for SPOK, Inc but I did not see anything for 929.6625 Mhz for any of those Texas locations.
btw - That FCC Lic - Paging and Radiotelephone License - KNKJ205 - Spok, Inc. (FRN=0015608417) was for 931.8625 & has pager traffic !
Our 2 towers for 931.8625 = Medical Center site Lic Loc# 5 (7711 Louis Pastuer Drive) & Downtown site Lic Loc# 20 (112 East Pecan Street)

Q= Jim, Does each USA city covered by Ambient WX Forecasts even have a unique city code or do these names just go out in clear text ?
btw - San Antonio is no where near Albuquerque, NM - Austin, Corpus Christi, Houston & Dallas are closest in this order to San Antonio.

Q= Jim, Just imagine what we could do by spoofing authorization/keep alive code signals have potential to resurrect dead WX forecasters ?
Q= I wonder if a unit "thinks" it's time synced and authorized would it then display the data that my authorized Brookstone unit displays ?

Q= Jim, yes I was watching my Brookstone and my PC Laptop running PDW attaching to a IF discriminator tapped scanner on 929.6625
btw - Yes, I R&R batteries, long pressed reset and had a clean slate memory and just 1 of those packets I pasted above fully populated data

Q= Skybug, I'm curious why PDW decodes a 9-digit ID code when the labels on units show 12 digit addresses - what's the deal here ?
btw - The PDW shown address of "010652057" is the ONLY one I have seen ever here in SATX that appears to be from Ambient's AIN !
So where are the other local users unique address ID's to authorize their units - also got my unit on ebay from Miami, FL and it works OK here.
Maybe this is just a group ID and some other data string authorizes and keeps alive the unit and or even tells it to lQQk for this group ID etc ?

Q= Skybug, On your Brookstone Weather FX5 please step through your 5 cities and tell which 5 cities you receive in Tyngsboro, Mass ?

Q= Jim, I even tried to use the myambient(dot)com address on the bottom of my 2 dead RS 5 Day forecasters to investigate perhaps
paying for the "Premium" subscription service for the past offer of a 6th paid for custom location thinking that might authorize these units?
I found their website not reachable and calling the listed 1-800 support # gets to another company selling to a life alert type pendant service !

Q= Jim, compare that weather data you RX on PDW to AccuWeather(dot)com in the way of forecasting and current weather conditions etc.

Q= Skybug, is your Bushnell WeatherFX FX5 a M/N# 950005 or the 950015 that on the ac adapter only can change colors on WX conditions ?
A= Click and check out the Bushnell Weather FX7/7-Day m/n# 950017 - only on ac adapter the back light changes with forecast conditions

WeatherFX Replacement

Replacement information for WeatherFX weather forecaster service

www.bushnell.com

Q= Anyone, we need to try to better understand the data string such as the following Ambient and other Flex 6400 message components ?
Examples as exactly cut and pasted from PDW PC-screen:
Address - Time - Date - Mode - Type - Bitrate - Monitored Messages Fields in PDW v3.12 Software decoding 929.6625 Mhz

1) The only data string that seems to affect and drives my unit ( and probably all the other local Ambient AIN powered devices )
010652057 22:49:55 15-02-20 FLEX-C ALPHA 6400 !TR* &R[//"4#C~G(+&aeYe[f[e[aY"!FF"El Paso TX +&_d\h`iae]]Z###&'Austin TX
+&^c]h`iag]^Z###&'San Antonio TX +&_c\d_g]aY\X"!""&Dallas TX
+&]`UaWaW`W_U!!"!#Albuquerque NM . [25]

2) Let's try to break down the following 2 similar strings ? So do these 2 pager users just see the 10 digit telephone # displayed or more info ?
My Questions are what does MSN / 059 / hello Message from / NOC means what ? / PCB means what ? / [02] & [07] mean what ?
Jim, I read your link to that dudes college thesis about FLEX paging decoding and I do remember seeing FLEX 6400 had 32 code words ?
002184074 00:29:17 18-02-20 FLEX-C ALPHA 6400 MSN 059 hello Message from NOC PCB. 3612241867 [02]
008781830 00:29:45 18-02-20 FLEX-C ALPHA 6400 MSN 057 hello Message from NOC PCB. 2102208829 [07]

3) I posted this message to highlight that the address code is smaller with only a 7 digit address - what happened to the 12 digit scheme ?
0048953 00:24:45 18-02-20 FLEX-A ALPHA 6400 From: notifier@r.ijfwvwsu.net Subject: (Down) - nb02-waw12-tll11-rtr01 - SolarWinds -
nb02-waw12-tll11-rtr01 - ip 10.50.2.129 is Down [40]

4) Here are a few more messages sent in a row to ponder: See G1x and the word Weather and city names ( who sends these and what for ? )

010652099 02:24:23 18-02-20 FLEX-C ALPHA 6400 ~G1#+"[ZRYRVOYS\W""!!#Jefferson city . [25]

010652099 02:24:25 18-02-20 FLEX-C ALPHA 6400 ~G1*K"WUKPIOLUQXU#!!!"SHEBOYGAN . [28]

010850092 02:24:25 18-02-20 FLEX-C ALPHA 6400 ~G1 J"][TZTWPXR[W&""!"GREINER HOME . [30]

010850068 02:24:25 18-02-20 FLEX-C ALPHA 6400 ~G14+"RUQUOSO[S\S(##!#Royer Bird Farm . [79]

101005818 02:24:29 18-02-20 FLEX-C ALPHA 6400 ~G1#+"Y[S[SUQ\W^V"#(##AMR . [93]

010652099 02:24:29 18-02-20 FLEX-C ALPHA 6400 ~G1 +"YXQVPTMXR[W#!!!"Pleasant . [29]

010850066 02:24:29 18-02-20 FLEX-C ALPHA 6400 ~G1 ,"ehaa\\Y_Ya^?''!"VAQUERO . [61]

101005818 02:24:47 18-02-20 FLEX-C ALPHA 6400 ~G1$+"Y[S[SUQ\W^V"#(##AMR . [95]

010652099 02:24:47 18-02-20 FLEX-C ALPHA 6400 ~G1!+"^[TZTWOXQZW#""!"Murphysboro . [31]

010850066 02:24:47 18-02-20 FLEX-C ALPHA 6400 ~G1"+"ehaa\\Y_Ya^?''!"Weather Forecast [63]

010763371 02:24:47 18-02-20 FLEX-C ALPHA 6400 ~G1"+"eg_b]][_]ca&'&##Corpus Christi . [74]

101005818 02:24:55 18-02-20 FLEX-C ALPHA 6400 ~G1'+"Z]U[UXR[V_X"#>##Lubbock, TX . [97]

101005818 02:24:58 18-02-20 FLEX-C ALPHA 6400 ~G1(+"Y[S[SUQ\W^V"#(##Amarillo, TX . [99]

Lastly, I need to perform several hard resets on my unit are study and compare PDW messages to what affects my Brookstone unit
authorizing / de-authorizing and watch for other strings that possible cause things to happen other than my know 5 city message string
I also have to try running PDW from my 4-level FSK slicer connected via RS-232 comm port vs the discriminator tap to sound card input.

++


Hi Michael,

Post got a bit confusing for me so I may not have posted this so you could see it.

Just saw this. Thanks.

I'll go over it and comment in a bit.

I built a 12 element yagi for 929.6625, but first try did not generate enough RF to key the decoder. I can peak the pager on 929.6125 by turning the antenna, but the weather here was atrocious yesterday and I could not position the antenna outside and away from the house. More work on that today.

What I have managed:

1. Took the weather station apart and threw away the case. I will rig up something appropriate later.
2. Frequency 929.6652 MHz was on a label on the pager board as expected.
3. The board is not the board shown in the development kit doc. Can't determine who made it.
4. The board has two labeled unused solder points for serial comms in and out.
5. Found that the 16 inch gray wire that had come loose inside the case had been attached to the loop antenna
6. on the pager board. It may have been that this wire worked its way loose while in the hands of the last owner and they figured the unit was broken. There is a solder connection for the wire antenna.
7. By peaking (still too weak) the third signal that appears on 929 to 930 here I have determined that it is in fact 929.6652 and there is much much less traffic on that channel than on the 929.6125 (500 Hz separation). The former is for Local One Way Messaging and the latter is for Nationwide Messaging. Having no way to adjust the SDRplay for frequency offset, I used my HP-3336B sig gen to give me a harmonic at 900 MHz that I could refer to. The SDR is about 700 Hz. out.

So some progress has been made. I think you'll find that your pager receiver inside the weather station does not have the leds, but probably has the pin outs for them - I have not looked. It would be cool to get them working as well as you suggested.

I will take a more detailed look at your last post re the strings. You've given me a lot to chew red those strings.

Thanks,
Jim

 

[Michael-SATX]

Jim, just to clear, those to good to be true $24 Brookstone 5 Day Weather Forecasters (950005) "were" on Clearance at Walmart years ago
Walmart probably got and sold those that cheap due to them being EOL (End Of Life) units due to planned Ambient AIN wind down looming.
So you have the older larger and more rare Brookstone 10" display 5 Day Weather forecaster with glass, what is it's mfg date code on big PCB ?
Also peal off that white stick that says 929.6625 Mhz and see if the PCB is silk screened "Unication" the pager company the OEM's the board ?
Oh and that larger display circuit board in that tech summary will NOT look like our display boards as that was more of an Ambient R&D design.
Big as it was I would have kept that bulky 10" Brookstone unit housing, connected that 16" antenna wire and had other friends and co workers
take it home and report back their results. Of course I would have used the Ambient towers list to first guess who had the best odds of reception!
Good luck with your home brew Yagi antenna experiment and yes by all means use that 929.6125 to tweak and improve your signal strength !

 

[skybug]

Geez, a few more post since I saw Mikes this morning. I can see your weather and forecast and yes, that is the one I have. For my location, I am getting the closet station, which happens to be the Nashua, NH Airport, and my display shows Nashua on it. Attached 2 images at the current times with the Nashua temp and forecast and the Austin TX info. Geez, your a little chilly down there huh?

 

[Michael-SATX]

Skybug, all I can say is I'm speechless, wondering how your unit can display the Austin, TX forecast by receiving the Nashua, NH Airport tower ?

So still being in the learning and discovery mode this throws a wrench in my understanding of how I had thought the AIN broadcasts worked !
Again my understanding was that each tower sent out a pre-determined set of 5 city screens that Ambient folks pre-picked out - not the user
plus the no longer available/ offered premium paid subscription to cover the cost of dedicated extra bandwidth to send a 6th city of WX data.

If I didn't know better, I would now wonder if your Brookstone FX5 950015C unit is capable of 2-way type reFLEX mode paging ie TX & RX ?
Example, you the end user steps through locations and sets say Austin, TX to receive weather forecasts and your unit sends a small signal
with a city code and it get's processed and added to your closest local paging towers data-casting que and presto you can have any city
you want in the USA that is predefined. Back in the 1990's I almost upgraded my Motorola Advisor alpha-numeric pager to the cutting edge
Motorola t900 2-way alpha-numeric pager using reFLEX instead of just FLEX mode. I wonder if the older Bushnell's can pick any city to view?

Question for anyone with a kick ass Bushnell Weather FX5/FX7 model that also has the ability to decode the 929.6625 pager traffic with PDW :
Try this experiment to determine with certainty exactly what is going on by setting up the gear to analyze the AIN data-stream traffic first.
Next leave your Bushnell unit at whatever city you were getting forecasting like say Nashua, NH and confirm seeing this same clear-text city
buried within the message body say every 30-minutes (maybe even every 15-minutes as advertised) and paste string to study into notepad.
Now the big test is to go pick a city across the county like Los Angeles, CA and step through and select that city and wait for it to populate
while also watching your computer running the PDW program in FLEX monitor mode and see if the next time you see your AIN data cast
it no longer shows Nashua, NH but now shows Los Angeles, CA in clear text ? I will sniff my units with a frequency counter for any transmits ?
Also thinking perhaps that AIN has different data streams and or pages to feed and populate these various different WX forecaster models ?
I have great respect and faith in the RadioReference community and know many can do these 2 city tests and shed much needed light here

ps - I wish we had a source to buy some of those Bushnell units used for the trade in program but they are probably crushed or e-waste now ?
Users that sent their Bushnell units in and got the cheaper / inferior La Crosse "barometric guessing" models don't report being to happy

btw - Remember these Motorola t900 alpha numeric pagers that used the newer 2-way pager reFLEX protocol - anyone use these pagers ?

 

[skybug]

I have seen data streams that shows "multiple" cities across the USA coming across a pager frequency so maybe there is a chip in unit that's saving the info and depending on your selection chosen, its retrieving that info from it, that would be my only guess. I knew that would throw you when you saw the displays. Takes me about a minute to cycle thru all of them. I have a handful of them T900's, some like new. Was going to have one activated for service and put it off as I am not allowed to have a 2 way device in work so I stuck with the one way pager. Have a box full of pagers just collecting dust if anyone is interested. Paid some bucks for some of them back in the days Oh, as far as being user selected and retrieving that data, I can fly thru all of them wihtout any missing, drops, delays in seeing the data for that city so I can only guess its already in the unit, perhaps as a batch of data update at certain times, all of them. I can try to locate another one of these units to play around with, I only have the one and its mounted in the living room and use it all the time, so I wouldn't want to mess with that one. Name here is Frank.

 

[IAmSixNine]

Memories. I had a T900 in early 2000s, along with my Nextel. I worked for a 2-way radio company / Nextel dealer. I remember doing a job at a local hospital and being in a sub basement. The Nextel was shut off for obvious reasons (those gave out a lot of RF and in a hospital we turned off cell phones). As soon as i came to ground floor my T900 would sync and messages were received. That is what i loved about it. I never missed a page because it would send a response back confirming it got the page.
This is the reason you see regional and national frequencies. Its all one way for standard pagers and no reply confirming you got a page. The only service that did was the 2-way paging. Going off memory and experience from dealing with the pagers and experience working in the 2-way field. The source is sending ALL of the data from the weather network to the devices. The devices will RX it and only show info for the city or closes to your location based on the city choices in the unit. There is no back and forth.
If you had a pager for national coverage, and a page was sent out, it was sent to every pager transmitter in that network nationwide.
If your on a regional pager plan, it would only send the alert to the terminals in your coverage area, even if the frequency was the same nationwide. The company i work for now sells pagers now and then, and when i set up a customer on it (one way local, not national) i have to go to the pager company menu and select the coverage area and terminal. The same frequency is used in big cities all across the county but the coverage / terminal ensure the info is only sent to the region chosen.
If your listening to the nationwide FLEX and you hear longer transmissions, its likely those news or sports or weather updates as they have lots of data in them and cover national devices. Remember POCSAG was older slower paging and had less info in the data stream, FLEX can hold more data so those long data burst you hear typically are updates. But this info was based on what i was doing and hearing 15 years ago. When paging and national news, sports and weather for pages was common. Dunno if that sort of stuff is still happening or not.

Paging is still a very reliable way to get info out. I have a service that goes to my phone, but as a back up i have a pager that recieves duplicate messages to a CP1250 pager. Its a great way for me to test our services. Several times i have been able to find Sprint or Tmobile or Verizon is having issues because my pager will get the alert, but not my phone. But thats a different story and i dont want to get this thread off topic.
I just wanted to share some paging info.

This is a great thread and those weather terminals look great.

 

[skybug]

Skybug, all I can say is I'm speechless, wondering how your unit can display the Austin, TX forecast by receiving the Nashua, NH Airport tower ?

So still being in the learning and discovery mode this throws a wrench in my understanding of how I had thought the AIN broadcasts worked !
Again my understanding was that each tower sent out a pre-determined set of 5 city screens that Ambient folks pre-picked out - not the user
plus the no longer available/ offered premium paid subscription to cover the cost of dedicated extra bandwidth to send a 6th city of WX data.

If I didn't know better, I would now wonder if your Brookstone FX5 950015C unit is capable of 2-way type reFLEX mode paging ie TX & RX ?
Example, you the end user steps through locations and sets say Austin, TX to receive weather forecasts and your unit sends a small signal
with a city code and it get's processed and added to your closest local paging towers data-casting que and presto you can have any city
you want in the USA that is predefined. Back in the 1990's I almost upgraded my Motorola Advisor alpha-numeric pager to the cutting edge
Motorola t900 2-way alpha-numeric pager using reFLEX instead of just FLEX mode. I wonder if the older Bushnell's can pick any city to view?

Question for anyone with a kick ass Bushnell Weather FX5/FX7 model that also has the ability to decode the 929.6625 pager traffic with PDW :
Try this experiment to determine with certainty exactly what is going on by setting up the gear to analyze the AIN data-stream traffic first.
Next leave your Bushnell unit at whatever city you were getting forecasting like say Nashua, NH and confirm seeing this same clear-text city
buried within the message body say every 30-minutes (maybe even every 15-minutes as advertised) and paste string to study into notepad.
Now the big test is to go pick a city across the county like Los Angeles, CA and step through and select that city and wait for it to populate
while also watching your computer running the PDW program in FLEX monitor mode and see if the next time you see your AIN data cast
it no longer shows Nashua, NH but now shows Los Angeles, CA in clear text ? I will sniff my units with a frequency counter for any transmits ?
Also thinking perhaps that AIN has different data streams and or pages to feed and populate these various different WX forecaster models ?
I have great respect and faith in the RadioReference community and know many can do these 2 city tests and shed much needed light here

ps - I wish we had a source to buy some of those Bushnell units used for the trade in program but they are probably crushed or e-waste now ?
Users that sent their Bushnell units in and got the cheaper / inferior La Crosse "barometric guessing" models don't report being to happy

btw - Remember these Motorola t900 alpha numeric pagers that used the newer 2-way pager reFLEX protocol - anyone use these pagers ?

View attachment 80712

Michael, on your first line above, when I said Nashua site, I meant this is the closet reporting wx station to my house for temp and forecast. Not the tower transmitting the data. But in fact, the signal for my pager does come from a tower in downtown Nashua thou and if the freq's you guys are mentioning are in fact pager frequencies, perhaps thats where my wx unit is also getting the data from. Its not a strong output tower and its on the top of one of the hospitals in Nashua. I have 2 pagers, one is on 929.6125 and other is on 929.6625.

 

[Michael-SATX]

Frank, your the first Bushnell Weather FX user that I have talked to that has shared these newer type of unit's operational details.
So now it would seem that these Ambient FLEX pages are NOT a one size fits all unit's but might vary by method for diff unit designs ?
Of my 3 units which are the one Brookstone 5-Day (07/2007) and the two Radio Shack 5-Day (09/2004) 5 Day weather forecasters
DO NOT have any locations pre-loaded in their EPROM's and they do download these 5 cities in the exact order I see from PDW screen.
Our tower sends out WX data for these 5 cities: Display Screen#1=El Paso,#2=Austin,#3=San Antonio,#4=Dallas,#5=Albuquerque,NM

Address - Time - Date - Mode - Type - Bitrate - Monitored Messages body as pasted from PC's PDW screen below:
010652057 01:20:18 19-02-20 FLEX-C ALPHA 6400 !T4* &R[/2"7#+~G(+#\dZ`X_[c[cZ""##!El Paso TX +#]^[[Y^Wa]e[''"##Austin TX
+#^^[\X_Ya^e\'&###San Antonio TX +#\]YX_]cZ>2"#'Dallas TX
+#YaW[T^Y_XaV###&"Albuquerque NM . [75]

If I were to reset clear and mail off to another area they should RX a different set of 5 cities on my units and see matching cities using PDW !
So conceding this Ambient AIN is 1-way (RX only) I sure as heck DO NOT log 150 cities of weather forecast data being broadcast on 929.6625.
Next thought is are these models are receiving an alternate form of data packets that PDW / FLEX mode monitor cannot display - possible ?
Frank, from viewing PDW in FLEX monitor mode - Do you honestly feel you are seeing 150 unique city names or much less in clear text ?

Here are some sections from the Bushnell WeatherFX series owners manual below:
Once you have provided power to the unit and set your location, you’re done with the setup-that’s all you need to do! Your WeatherFX
unit will start to display weather information for your area once it automatically connects to the network that relays the data from AccuWeather.com. You will typically see most (or all) of your area’s weather information appear on the display within the first 15 minutes, however the time it takes for the display to show all of the data on the larger models may take longer. (Their verbiage "connects" to some would imply a 2-way handshake but this is not the case but rather the authors interpretation of the "time-syncing and data receiving process)

Q: Problem - Only part of the screen is showing any data. (Troubleshooting section)
A: Data is sent to your WeatherFX in discrete parts, so if your unit is only showing data on one part of the screen, or only some of the 150 cities, it’s likely that the next update your Forecaster receives will remedy this situation. If you’ve waited hours try checking signal & relocate.

The screen message "No Coverage” will appear if your forecaster device has been unable to receive a network signal for an extended period.
To verify your current (or any) location has network coverage, you can check Ambient Signal Coverage Map (web page says to call support)
Jim, so does your Brookstone 10" screen say "Network Found" or does it just keep doing a power on self test ? How many bars do you RX ?

So Ambient AIN devices show their 12 digit device serial number values on labels in ASCII format. Currently, these are only numeric characters.
The Ambientdevices(dot)com website tells you to call with your address and 12 digit device ID so they imply they can cross to your CAP code ?
My Brookstone unique 12 digit (label on inside battery cover) S/N# 014-02-1226-353 (power up boot screen shows as same 0140 2122 6353)
The 9 digit pager CAP code address of 010652057 is what positively activates and populates all 5 same cities both on forecaster unit and PDW.
Device S/N's are embedded in main display boards and swapping pager boards and cold / hard resets still shows same AIN S/N on boot ups.
Brookstone Unit #1) S/N# 014-02-1226-353 = CAP Code # 010652057 (Working but no CAP Code label just 929.6625 on unid pager RX board)
Radio Shack Unit#2) S/N# 010-01-8394-141 = CAP Code # 041223865 (Non-Working Unication # NF10X0904 pager CAP Code RX board label)
Radio Shack Unit#3) S/N# 010-00-0708-633 = CAP Code # 041215728 (Non-Working Unication # NF10X0904 pager CAP Code RX board label)
The crazy thing is 2 other user in 2 other cities report their old Radio Shack Cat#63-1085 5 Day Weather Forecasters (also 09A04) still working
My units were always on when they stop receiving WX updates 2018 ish and on batteries plus ac adapters and get 3 Ambient circle signal bars

For Customers
Need help with your

device?
If you own a device that was purchased at Brookstone, please email Brookstone Customer Support: customerservice@brookstone.com or call 1-866-595-5907 to speak to a Brookstone Customer Service Representative.

Need help with your

device?
If you own an Ambient branded device and would like to send us an email, please be sure to include your street address and device serial number — we need these before we can start debugging. The serial number can be found on the back of the device or on the inside cover over the battery door. The format xxx-xx-xxxx-xxx for all devices other than the Orb and Beacon which have a 9 digit code on the bottom.

Email support
Send us an email (support at ambientdevices dot com) for assistance with your Ambient Device and we'll get back to you in two business days or less.

Are there any other users that have dead Ambient devices regardless of brand to report ? If so what city/state, Brand, Type, m/n# if known ?
I hear Ambient color changing WX Orbs, Stock Market Mavens (showed DOW,S&P,NASDAQ), Bushnell WXi 7-Day Golf units (WiFi) are all dead

ps ~ Hello Ambient Devices, Inc. - Many of us turned off folks would pay costs to help like a "premium" 6th city just to get our 1 city back on

 

[skybug]

Hi Mike, if that's ok to call ya? That's what my guess would be. I don't know much about this PDW but been into radios as a hobby and ham radio operator for quite some time now. I have a pretty good radio shack and station running. Putting out info to my weather page, listening to 4 different scanners for activity in my surrounding area, monitoring radiation, earthquakes, etc. But back to this, back when I was into pagers, I remembering seeing talk, well this was recently, about these devices going off the air and did, was pretty upset about that but mine never did, still going strong. Only thing that happens is from a power outage or I knock the plug out of the all, Of course it comes up blank on restart until it locks onto the signal again to start receiving. There have been times that only the temp showed up first, then the forecast a short time later. Did some searching and saw all the postings out there about them and how a lot of the folks units just stopped working and now DOA's. Then I saw the latest ones stating that as of 12/2019, service was going to be halted on these units. A week or so ago, mine was stuck on one temp and didn't update for a day or two, I thought it was done but still had 2 bars showing, so I left it on and sure enough it was updated again. Assumed it was system glitch on their end, its been working fine since. Only thing I can about the multiple cities is that I saw postings on another forum and someone had posted a screen shot showing all these data lines that were coming across and could see cities from across the USA listed in the string. Now I don't know if that was relater to these weather devices for the info or some "pager" type of weather info for those. I don't honestly remember seeing that many cities in the data string, but do remember seeing quite a few of them listed. I also read somewhere, I thought that some type of units receive the local radio station and picks up a sub-carrier for it for its data, but have no idea where I read that and probably not anything to do with these but thought I would put that out there. I remember those Wx Orbs, always wanted to get one but by the time I wanted one, I read the bad news about those going off the air as well. Oh, so, as far as these goes > "DO NOT have any locations pre-loaded in their EPROM's" I don't know. I wouldn't think they were pre-loaded, but picked up and stored in the unit somehow? its the only thing I can think of that I can see all of them when I go thru all the cities in my unit.

 

[skybug]

Well that was a long process, I watched my unit from 7:58am waiting for it to update, finally at 8:45am, it updated all the cities I scroll thru on my unit. Checking the SPOK site for coverage up here, 929.6125 is local freq and 929.6625 is the nationwide one.

 

[Michael-SATX]

Frank, I do much appreciate your feedback and taking your time here to work together so we can all better understand the Ambient WX AIN .
Both my units DO NOT have any cities stored in EPROMs and on a cold boots there is no data view, until my units RX's it's AIN 30 min update.
Bushnell Weather FX series units DO HAVE all 150 cities stored in EPROMs on their larger PCB's, proof is city names shown B4 any AIN updates.

Today, I will conduct another small experiment to see if mom's and mine (identical Brookstone's) populate for the first time on cold boots
and also receive 30 minute updates from the same AIN FLEX page out CAP code or if by another CAP code that I also log with PDW program
monitoring 929.6625 Mhz. When over at her house I will bring my same model Brookstone unit, a tapped scanner into PDW laptops mic input.
It will be the first time I will have had a chance to place these same model units next to each other and I will report back my test results.
So my units CAP code 010652057 I log at 04 and 34 minutes after the hour and this different Cap code # I see every 19 and 49 minutes after.
Both these 2 FLEX pages even though have 2 different CAP codes show the same exact 5 cities in clear text that both these forecasters display.

You made reference to Microsoft's MSN Direct data casting service that ended which used RBDS hosted on larger metro FM radio stations.
MSN Direct was an FM radio-based digital service using RBDS (Radio Broadcast Data Service) which allowed 'SPOT' portable devices to receive information from MSN services. Devices that supported MSN Direct included wristwatches, desktop clocks, in-car GPS satellite navigation units, and even small appliances such as coffee makers. Information available through paid "channels" included weather, horoscopes, stocks, news, sports results and calendar notifications. The service also allowed users to receive short messages sent from Windows Live Messenger users.
As a radio-based service, MSN Direct did not have universal coverage, but was available in populated parts of the United States and Canada.
It was not launched in other areas. The MSN Direct service was shut down on January 1, 2012, as originally announced back in October 2009.

MSN Direct - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[skybug]

Hi Mike, oh ya, that's right, I had one of them units years ago, had it running in the bedroom until I noticed it was all dashes and never filled in again, then found out it was shut down, that was a nice unit too, tossed that unit in the bucket. So, ya, on my current unit, that's what I was thinking, it must have something stored in the prom and when the data comes in, it gets populated and shown. My unit does the same thing thou, it will be blank for some time after being off then it fills in with the current data. Mine just updated at 8:48am.

 

[Michael-SATX]

Sunday while over at my moms house, I placed both our identical Brookstone units together while watching my laptop screen running PDW.
On both units I long pressed reset buttons to clear data and then also removed and replaced the 4x AA batteries to wipe the slates clean.
My experiment results were that BOTH units went from blank dashes on screen to fully populated by receiving the same exact data page !
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Both the 2 Brookstone 5 Day Weather Forecasters (2007) populate and get their updates from these pages 30 min apart ( :04 & :34 times)
Notice in SATX this CAP codes group page sends weather data for 5 cities by using only 3 digit description codes: ELP, AUS, SAT, DAL & ABQ
These Brookstone units ONLY display these same 3 letter codes and not the full spelling: So examples AUS=Austin and SAT=San Antonio, TX

Address - Time - Date - Mode - Type - Bitrate - Monitored Messages (in PDW v3.12 Software decoding 929.6625 Mhz at IF RX stage)

011061271 01:04:02 25-02-20 FLEX-C ALPHA 6400 !T%*
&R[/8"7#"~<!00"TF_U]UbXdZf]!!F##ELPPEdX_SaWeYeZ"!!!!AUSRFeX`UbWeZf["!!!!SATQF`W\UaWcYc["
!!!!DALNAZR[S_U`VaX"!!""ABQ [28]

011061271 01:34:22 25-02-20 FLEX-C ALPHA 6400 !TC*
&R[/8"7#@~<!00"TD_T]TbXcZf]!!F##ELPREcY_SaWeYf["!!!!AUSQFeY`UbXeZf]"!!!!SATQD`W\UaXcYe["
!!!!DALN@ZQ[S_U`VbY"!!""ABQ [29]
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Both the 2 Radio Shack 5 Day Weather Forecasters (2004) populate and get their updates from these pages 30 min apart ( :19 & :49 times)
Please note this different CAP codes group page sends weather data for the same 5 cities but they are fully spelled out not 3 letter codes etc.
These Radio Shack Cat#63-1085 units DO DISPLAY the 5 cities names fully spelled out including the 2 letter state postal code as shown below:
btw ~ When RX conditions are poor I have often seen an incomplete or partial city name on the RS forecasters that also show same in PDW.

Address - Time - Date - Mode - Type - Bitrate - Monitored Messages (in PDW v3.12 Software decoding 929.6625 Mhz at IF RX stage)

010652057 23:49:18 24-02-20 FLEX-A ALPHA 6400 !TR* &R[/8"5#M~G(+!a_U]UbXdZf]!!F##El Paso TX +!\dX_SaWeYeZ"!!!!Austin TX
+!^eX`UbWeZf["!!!!San Antonio TX +!\`W\UaWcYc["!!!!Dallas TX
+!YZR[S_U`VaX"!!""Albuquerque NM . [63]

010652057 00:49:19 25-02-20 FLEX-A ALPHA 6400 !TR* &R[/8"6#N~G(+!`_U]UbXdZf]!!F##El Paso TX +"[dX_SaWeYeZ"!!!!Austin TX
+"]eX`UbWeZf["!!!!San Antonio TX +"\`W\UaWcYc["!!!!Dallas TX
+!XZR[S_U`VaX"!!""Albuquerque NM . [65]

010652057 01:49:48 25-02-20 FLEX-C ALPHA 6400 !TR* &R[/8"7#O~G(+"__T]TbXcZf]!!F##El Paso TX +"]cY_SaWeYf["!!!!Austin TX
+"\eY`UbXeZf]"!!!!San Antonio TX +"[`W\UaXcYe["!!!!Dallas TX
+"XZQ[S_U`VbY"!!""Albuquerque NM . [67]

Also noticed during these early morning hours today updates only occurred every hour instead of 30 min updates like I normally log etc.
I noticed this CAP code group page was only going out once an hour and not 30 min apart like the different CAP code group pages above.
In that :19 min time slot there were other alpha numeric hospital pages so maybe these WX updates get bumped by higher priority traffic ?
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Note: To test my 2 dead Radio Shack units I had to substitute the 929.6625 Mhz pager RX daughter boards from my working Brookstone unit !
Well so much for the 9 digit CAP Code theory in that SAME pager board responded to a different CAP Code once in a different model unit !!!
It would seem a good next experiment would be to solder test jack pigtail harnesses to the pager RX boards TX, RX and GND unused pads
and connect them to an RS-232 port on a computer and run a serial port data logger and see if my 2 dead RS pager RX boards have output ?
I would expect to discover an X-ON / X-OFF software type handshaking and a 6400 baud rate will be where I shall try first but we shall see.

Would someone that has an IF discriminator tapped scanner / radio / SDR (VB Audio Cable) and PDW (Pager Display for Windows) program
that also has reception of the USA Mobility Nationwide paging network also please cut and paste their own 5 city page example in this thread!
I hope we can discover what CAP Codes and pager messages update the Bushnell Weather FX series with 150 pre-loaded city code names ?

Also Frank I wonder if the pages your Bushnell Weather FX series are also updated at :19 and :49 minutes (of course with random exceptions)
Frank or any reader if you have a tapped scanner, receiver w/ IF output or an SDR USB dongle and can run PDW that would really help out !
Here is the link to download the PDW program: https://www.discriminator.nl/pdw/index-en.html

ps ~ Frank, for now you can call me Michael (hence my user Michael-SATX)
Maybe later in a few years if I decide to run & "pull a Bloomberg" I just might shorten my name to Mike 2024, oh yeah ... so I can git er done

 

[skybug]

Morning Michael, of to work but logging this up here. Will add more later when I get home.
!TR* (R[/9"$#?~G(+"[]Y[Y^UYTYS##2#"Boston MA +"Z_Y]X]TYSXQ>#2#"Providence RI +"W\WYWZSWQVO#++""Portland ME +"X]WZX
[TWRWQ#++#"Manchester NH +"Z\Y[X]TYTXR'#0""Chatham MA . [81]

 

[skybug]

Morning Michael, of to work but logging this up here. Will add more later when I get home.
!TR* (R[/9"$#?~G(+"[]Y[Y^UYTYS##2#"Boston MA +"Z_Y]X]TYSXQ>#2#"Providence RI +"W\WYWZSWQVO#++""Portland ME +"X]WZX
[TWRWQ#++#"Manchester NH +"Z\Y[X]TYTXR'#0""Chatham MA . [81]

Hi Michael, so far on my unit, its updating once a hour and its around 45 to 49 minutes to the hour. I see what you mean thou with what you posted with the 5 main cities and I see the same thing, but a different set for my area of course. Not sure if it has anything to do with me unit thou since I can see all 150 of them in my unit if I scroll thru them all and are all updated, so its getting something in the signal that I can't see unless its coded for my particular unit. I can see it updating every 30 minutes but my display only updates once an hour, around 49 minutes of the hour.

 

[Michael-SATX]

Frank, when you get home from work and have time, will you bring up PDW and lQQk for the following 2 types of 5 city pages I have RX here.
Post your 2 unique CAP Codes/Date/Time/Message examples of both the 5 cities spelled out as well as the 3 letter city code version I shared.
This will let me see if my 2 CAP Codes (group pages) used in SATX are the same 2 you see up there but with different city names of course.

Also after you reset your Bushnell Weather FX5 (950015C) are you saying this same page you pasted from PDW is what updates your unit ?
If so maybe after a total reset clear that just those 5 cities are available then later the rest of the 150 cities WX screens are updated right ?
I would be curious how long after a cold reset your Bushnell takes to display 1 of those 5 cities vs how long to update San Antonio WX screen ?

On my Brookstone 5 Day forecaster I have seen an oddity the last 2 days in that the "Time" will not display just stays blank after many resets :

So your local AIN tower's 5 city weather forecast data screens as you posted above are these with their 3 letter city codes and names are:
City #1=BOS=Boston MA / #2=PRO=Providence RI / #3=PTL=Portland ME / #4=MAN=Manchester NH / #5=XCM=Chatham MA

Here is a link below to a website to help us convert those 3-letter IATA City Codes to actual City Names.

3 letter IATA City code to City name converter

3 letter IATA City code to City name converter. GitHub Gist: instantly share code, notes, and snippets.

gist.github.com