A tale of two radios (reception issues)

[Clay Jackson]

I have two weewx servers running - one for "development" and one that runs my "real" web site. (www.n7qnm.net/weewx).    I'm running 4.5.1 on the real site, and 4.8.0 in my dev environment.   The two Raspbberry Pi's are located within 10' of each other.

On the production system, I have an NESDR SmarTee V1 radio.   On the Dev system, I HAD a NooElec R820T NESDR mini.

I'm in an "rf rich" environment.   I have at least 10 433Mhz sensors, an Amateur Radio Repeater on 442.300 and there are close to 100 WiFi "emitters" (router and clients) on 2.5 and 5 Ghz within "hearing range".

After I added "yet another 433Mhz sensor", my dev system started throwing "wild" decodes for rain, lighting strikes and wind (1000 lightning strikes in a 5 min period, 100 inches of rain, 90 Mph wind gusts).  I tried swapping locations and antennas, but the problem stayed with the Dev system.  

After some tracing and discussions on the RTL and SDR mailing lists, I decided to try a new radio for my Dev system.   Got a SmarTee V2, and the problem has cleared up.

From specs, it looks like the SmarTee's use 820T2 and the Mini uses an 820T.'

Granted, it's not really "scientific"; but at least in this one case, "You get what you pay for".