Decoding the LightwaveRF LW600 Energy Monitor

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Benet Allen

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Mar 7, 2026, 6:24:03 AM (7 days ago) Mar 7
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I’ve been trying  (with the help of Claude, but for several days) to decode radio transmissions like this:


{"time" : "2026-03-06 14:07:27", "model" : "MC", "count" : 1, "num_rows" : 1, "rows" : [{"len" : 138, "data" : "55555977d8a7b9131bdadb81032136ffe48"}], "codes" : ["{138}55555977d8a7b9131bdadb81032136ffe48"]}


My home energy project is a solar-battery-multiple property setup, and although my inverters monitor the overall load, I would love to re-purpose my old-school LightwaveRF kit, which includes six energy monitors and two hubs. 


I’ve got RTL software radio and node-red on my Mac.  I’m not a software engineer by training - I don’t speak Javascript (or Python for that matter) but Claude and Gemini have been a great help.  I *could* buy another four hubs on eBay, but that seems kludgy.   Can anyone help me understand the radio signals emitted by the old Energy Monitors?


Many thanks,


Benet Allen

Minehead

Christian Z.

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Mar 7, 2026, 6:34:43 AM (7 days ago) Mar 7
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First get a sample file and check if the timing and modulation is correct. (MC could be DMC.) Or upload a sample file and let others have a look.
Then table what you seen on some display with codes and compare. Maybe in a https://triq.org/bitbench/

Benet Allen

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Mar 8, 2026, 7:03:25 AM (6 days ago) Mar 8
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With pleasure.  Thank you Christian for jumping in!  
lw600_scan SAVED3 .jsonl

Christian Z.

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Mar 8, 2026, 11:34:45 AM (5 days ago) Mar 8
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The sample file we need to look at would be .cu8 -- see https://triq.org/rtl_433/ANALYZE.html
Inspecting the spectrogram (https://triq.org/pdv) should be a fun way to get a feel for what such a rf signal is.

Benet Allen

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Mar 9, 2026, 6:43:33 AM (5 days ago) Mar 9
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Hi Christian.  You probably gathered, I'm new to this. I thought the problem was decoding data bursts, but perhaps it's actually seeing them?
frequency 868.35M

sample_rate 1000k

gain 40

protocol +61

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1rxdCKrMFGadU002EPRD-XIULJibOCbwX&usp=drive_fs

Christian Z.

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Mar 9, 2026, 7:33:54 AM (5 days ago) Mar 9
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That upload ist protected, probably needs to be set to public read access.

Christian Z.

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Mar 9, 2026, 9:01:23 AM (4 days ago) Mar 9
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The strongest signal, 3x at 6.5 and 2x at 13.5 s, is FSK but not MC. Some of the other signals look similar.
You need to isolate the signal you are interested in. Maybe use -S all
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