Amusing Error from an automower Newbie - maybe useful for someone to read, or to laugh at :)
I recently got my hands on an M700 / WR142E and set about setting up a temporary zone while I finish creating the actual area that I got it for.
I pegged out a 120m^2 area, made sure the run-in to the charging station was straight and level enough to make the average NASA engineer nod with quiet approval, and painstakingly teased the grass out from under the perimeter wire while the mower sat and charged.
And I set it going.
Like all new automower owners, I followed it around like a lovesick puppy for half an hour, eventually tired of it's lack of pace, and decided to tell it to find the charger.
It followed the line like a tipsy bloodhound, and looked on happily as it followed the run-in to the dock with superb accuracy... and then it drove AROUND the dock - skirting around it like a politician dancing around a difficult question, and carrying on along the wire in its eternal search for home.
It took me a while to realise the mistake. It's a temporary zone. I didn't want to cut the wire, and I'd left the spool of wire *still in the circuit* and sat neatly against the back of the dock. Obviously I'd made a neatly coiled antenna that broadcast a signal that overpowered the single wire's signal.
I turned the spool around to confirm my theory, and it had the opposite effect: causing the mower to attack the base like horny tortoise.
Lesson learned. 😄
I'm now wondering if a neatly made coil above the ground, and around the base of a tree or plant could act as a no-go-zone by repelling the mower, but that's probably more effort than its worth.