Our client is an automation integrator working alongside various city councils. The integrator develops total irrigation solutions for large scale parks and gardens.
In the past council workers and park rangers have had to attend each property to monitor the park and set timers for sprinklers and irrigations systems. This was a timely and costly exercise each day.
Maxon Australia worked along side the integrator to provide the communications to enable the councils to; monitor their irrigations applications in real time, monitor the diagnostics of the overall system. Program and access control switches to sprinkler systems. The Intelimax+ serial modem was used to monitor the application and diagnostics and the Unimax+ was supplied to connect to control equipment via Ethernet connectivity to provide the communications required in order to remotely program the irrigation systems which was accessed via maXconnect an online management portal.
Our client is now integrating this system across all of the councils and properties it consults for and continues to partner with Maxon in developing new innovations for these applications with the goal of saving money and resources.
In this scenario; the client manages various council parks, gardens, playgrounds and sporting fields.
There is an irrigation system set up whereby storm water is utilised for irrigation via underground storage tanks.
The water goes down the drain and is pumped into into a storage tank. It is then pumped through a filtration system and into another storage tank and sent to sprinklers.
At the pump there is an Intelimax lite serial modem connected to the pump controller. This allows the user to access and monitor the pump controller in real time, monitor the health and diagnostics of the pump.
A Smartmax serial modem with SDI-12 capabilities is connected to sensors inside the storage tanks which allows data outlining the water levels and the water quality to be sent to a central location. Furthermore if parameters are set in relation to levels and qualities, warnings can be transmitted via email or ams by the modem to a designated person/s.
The Unimax+ with I/O capabilities is connected to the control room and is utilised to remotely access the sprinkler system. Allowing the user to turn them on and off or program specific times.
The client has maXwan - static IP address and is connected to the devices via maXvpn's secure virtual private network. Devices are all managed via maXconnect - an online management portal that can access, monitor and control the devices in real time from virtually anywhere 24/7.
This is one of many ways Maxon Australia can work with you to deliver solutions. We pride ourselves in our success and experience with customisation of both firmware and hardware for our clients.
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Site-to-Site VPN
A Site-to-Site VPN is for connecting a network to maXwan devices, rather than maXvpn which connects a single computer to maXwan devices; therefore, extending the company's network.
Where would you use Site-to-Site VPN?
An example of an application in which Site-to-Site VPN would be ideal is a company that manages various water treatment plants. They require information collected from data loggers via sensors at various sites in NSW and QLD - to be transmitted and made available to several different servers for reporting and monitoring. Each data logger has a maXwan (Fixed IP address) and is part of a subnet; therefore forming one Site-to-Site VPN. In the image below one server is allocated to NSW, one server is allocated to QLD and the third server is a back up of all data. Information from the data loggers is transmitted via a router to the applicable servers and multiple users can access and monitor the data as required.
Why is the antenna so important?
The antenna is a device for transmitting and/or receiving signals - the eyes and ears of your communication system. A good antenna is designed to be “in-tune” to the signal you are seeking - your phone or device “sees” the signal and you hear a clear conversation. Use a poor antenna and you simply cannot communicate effectively.
Determine the frequency in your area
In Australia the current mobile frequency bands can be broken into 700, 850, 900, 1800, 2100, 2300 and 2600Mhz. From the early years GSM was on the 900/1800 band, with 3G later being introduced on the 2100 band. As the demand for mobile internet and coverage increased the carriers introduced 3G on the 850 and 900 bands. With the recent introduction of 4G, carriers are turning off their GSM 1800 service and using the space to operate a 4G service. All of our modems support external antennas in either SMA or FME connectivity option.
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Carrier |
GSM |
3G |
4G LTE |
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Telstra |
900 (shutdown end of 2016) |
850 2100 |
700 900 1800 2100 2600 (testing) |
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Optus |
900 1800 |
900 2100 |
700 1800 2100 (NT and QLD) 2300 (ACT) 2600 (testing) |
| Vodafone |
900 1800 |
900 2100 |
850 2100 |
What is gain?
The gain of an antenna is a measure of the improvement in transmitted or received signal strength when its performance is measured against the theoretical standard isotropic radiator, whose radiation pattern represents a perfect sphere. Gain can only be achieved by focussing the radiation pattern in the direction in which it is needed by the addition of more radiating elements and/or directors and reflectors.
Mobile antennas should radiate in a symmetrical pattern 360° around the antenna. As gain is increased, the radiation gets compressed into a thinner pattern and reaches out further to the sides. The more gain an antenna has the thinner the pattern becomes and the further the signal can travel or reach. However a thinner radiation pattern may prevent strong signal reception when driving through hills and valleys or amongst built up areas such as city centres where base stations tend to be located on top of buildings.
Another thing to consider is whether the antenna is ground plane independent or not. Mounting an antenna that isn’t designed to work without a ground plane anywhere but in the middle of your cars roof will distort the radiation pattern so you no longer get a nice 360° radiation patterns resulting in dropped calls.
So check the following:
Will most of my use be in the city or travelling through hills and valleys? If so choose a lower gain antenna. If most of your use will be in relatively flat terrain then a higher gain option may suit your needs. Is the antenna ground independent? If not, are you willing to mount it in the middle of the roof of your vehicle?
What is unity gain?
An antenna which does not change signal level is said to be at “unity gain". This would be useful when the signal receiver is very good. High powered unity gain antennas are used in circumstances to draw the signal to the antenna.
What is a collinear antenna?
A collinear antenna is an array of dipole antennas mounted in such a manner that the corresponding elements of each antenna are parallel and collinear, that is they are located along a common line or axis. Collinear arrays of dipoles are high gain omnidirectional antennas.
What is a base station antenna?
In radio communications, a base station is a wireless communications station installed at a fixed location and used to communicate as part of one of the following: two-way radio system, or; a wireless telephone system such as cellular site. In wireless communications a base station antenna is a transceiver connecting a number of other devices to one another and/or to a wider area. In mobile telephony it provides the connection between mobile phones and the wider telephone network.
What is a multi band antenna?
A multiband antenna is an antenna designed to operate in multiple bands of frequencies. Multiband antennas use a design in which one part of the antenna is active for one band, while another part is active for a different band.
What mounting options do we offer?
