Batboard

Hi Group!

I have a client (a Fire Department) that needs to remotely monitor equipment at their radio sites. Things along the lines of building intrusion, HVAC status, generator status, etc.

I know MOSCAD does this nicely, but it's also ungodly expensive, a pain to set up and reconfigure as needed, etc.

There is already an existing wireless ethernet connection between the sites and the dispatch center that carries the voice radio traffic.

What I'm looking for is a telemetry device that I can install at the sites, connect to the ethernet for transport back to the dispatch center, and then connect to another device that will display the status of the remote equipment down at the dispatch center.

I'm not trying to do this "on the cheap", but MOSCAD isn't an option due to the ridiculous cost.

Who makes this stuff? Surely someone out there does. Is there a scalable product that I can purchase and install myself, and then design the user interface using a supplied software package with the product so that this agency can monitor it's remote equipment?

Any suggestions would be helpful.

Thanks!

The short answer is no one makes it cheaply or simple. The Intrac, and later Moscad, were/are popular remote site management products. I have done some bare bones AC fail and intrusion alarms tied to open E&M leads on the available DSO ports that lit LEDs down at dispatch. Harris used to make the CAU (control alarm unit) that worked in conjunction with the FarScan application, and Starview NMS (which was rebranded HP Openview). Great box. They don't sell it anymore. The closest I could find is the TCM - Terrestrial Central Monitoring - which is intended for the broadcast market. All the other site monitoring products I'm seeing lately tie to PLC's which are polled by a SCADA system (like Moscad) with a Wonderware user interface (which is not an easy out of the box solution).

May look at this company. Looks like it supports a web page with 5 sec status updates.

http://www.hw-group.com/products/poseid ... 50_en.html

http://www.ctiproducts.com/default.html

tpg

Check this out..
http://www.tascsystems.com/pages/products.html

I tried the siteCommander product with a pair of 900 MHz Kenwood Fleetsync enabled radios and it worked fine for what I was doing. They have a pretty dedicated site monitoring suite available it looks like. I didn't look to see if the rsm product worked on ethernet though. There are RTU's (remote terminal units) out there using ethernet as the connection in the power utility industry but that's an issue now due to the NERC Cyber Security rules coming down.

Surplus Sales has some Badger units that might work for you on sale:

http://www.surplussales.com/Omniremote/omniremote.html

Another choice to consider would be Trbo mobiles. The have 5 I/O pins and can be configured for status and/or control telemetry applications.

Thank you. Badger was one I was trying to remember from the analog Farinon and Granger days.

eta: I thought Badger had gone bye bye during the telecom meltdown. But, it is still around as Badger AC. Hopefully they still make a solid product. This is about as simple as you can get, and still be robust, and easy to understand.

http://www.badgerac.com/

Davicom site monitoring , by Comlab:

http://www.davicom.com/_home

Very good units ( and people!) to work with. Lots of capabilities.

Chuk G.
Cary, NC

I've never used this stuff, but these folks dropped their url in my inbox a week or two back..

http://www.controlbyweb.com/products.html

We use the the NteGuardian from DPS telecom. http://dpstele.com/products/network_ele ... ink=boxHdr

A ton of inputs and outputs that are controlled over a LAN. Measurements and alarms can come back via SNMP, Web GUI or a POTS line. Some of the units also have serial connections that you can use a browser to connect to. We use this feature to connect to a remote Premisys CB from anywhere on our LAN. About 3K for the last unit we bought.

We also use SNMPc from Castlerock. It is our SNMP Manager. It will talk to a DPS box as well as anything else that you put on a network. Cameras, UPS, Rectifiers, Tower Top Amps, routers, switches, servers, PC's, uWave radios.....

I've seen DPS Telecom rtu's before. They seem to do okay. Thanks for the reminder. Another tool in the toolbox.

IndigoVision is what we use. http://83.170.113.213/index.php/alarm-panel.html not my favorite because the device doesn't poll the inputs, it just looks for binary state changes. So you have to wire a door twice once for door open and once again for door close.

Thanks for useful links.

If you are only looking to monitor some voltages, door closures, and maybe a web cam or two, then the Newmar SPM-200 is a great solution for less than $1K.

Remote Monitoring Of Critical Site Conditions:

•Battery Voltage / DC Bus
•DC System Amperage / Battery Charge – Discharge Current
•AC Voltage and Generator Voltage
•Temperature
•Programmable Alarms
•Data Logging
Remote Monitoring Via: Internet, Email, Cell Phone and Ethernet Camera.

http://www.newmartelecom.com/Site_Power ... nitor.html


WEC