User's Manual

Atlas PT Technical Manual

communicate on the default channel. Change the channel frequency to your specific

frequency, and they will be ready to work on your channel.

6.1 Position Transmission

When the ATLAS PT transmits its position, it also reports other status information such

as voltage, input bits, temperature, velocity, and heading. All of these parameters are

compressed into a short data packet, and sent over the air in the proper TDMA time

slot. Each ATLAS PT is assigned a time slot, based upon its ID. ID 1 is slot 1, ID 2 is

slot 2…

Position/status reporting can be set to any rate in the range of 30 seconds to 5 minutes.

At the TXRATE setting. This is the transmit frequency interval setting. The user

configures TXRATE to be shortest acceptable interval between reports. The

factory default is 10 seconds.

At the IDLERATE setting. This is the idle reporting interval, usually the longest

acceptable time between position reports.

IDLERATE is used as a slow-reporting rate for parked vehicles, vehicles that have no

active trigger inputs, no proximity alerts, and that the user has programmed them to

require a minimum movement distance before they will report.

6.2 Set the Transmission Report rate

Using the TXRATE xx command to set the report rate, in seconds, for the ATLAS PT

transponder. For example, if you wish the RV-M7 to report every 5 minutes, set the

report rate to 300 seconds (TXRATE 300).

If you only want the ATLAS PT to report position and status when it is moving, set the

TXRATE xx to the desired time between position transmissions. Then, program the

IDLERATE xx to the desired number of seconds between reports when the unit is not

moving (idle).

IMPORTANT!: If IDLERATE operation is desired, set the minimum distance the unit must

move before a transmission occurs with the TRIGDX xx command. If TRIGDX is set to

zero, then the unit will always report at the interval set with the TXRATE xx command.

For example, to transmit every 2 minutes when idle, and every 10 seconds when

moving more than 500 meters, use these commands:

IDLERATE 120 (to set the idle moving update interval to 2 minutes.)

TRIGDX 500 (tells it to report at the IDLERATE if it does not move this far)

TXRATE 10 (configures it to report every 10 seconds whenever it is moves more than

TRIGDX meters)

The following diagram illustrates the logic behind the various programmable parameters

that can be used to configure the ATLAS PT to trigger position transmission. The logic

inside of the ATLAS PT shown is tested at a user-programmable rate, called the

TXRATE. The TXRATE is the time interval between ATLAS PT position/status radio

transmissions.