VIZMONET BreadCrumb Wireless Nodes (ES1-2450R) : User's Guide : Page 31

The BreadCrumbs being monitored will be instructed to send BC|Commander wireless connection infor-

mation at 1 second intervals (regardless of the BreadCrumb configuration setting BCAPI: General Update

Interval). These accelerated updates will continue until the Antenna Tuning dialog is closed. If either

BreadCrumb were to lose the connection to its peer, graphing will flatline or pause until the connection is

restored. If BC|Commander were to lose connection to one of the BreadCrumbs, graphing will pause until

the connection is reestablished.

The graphs are a sliding window view of the collected information and will begin to discard/age-out older

data after 4 minutes of usage. Historical data is not maintained.

Note

This feature is unlikely to work well with BreadCrumbs running firmware earlier than Version 11.8. Ver-

sion 11.8 firmware added on-demand fast updates of cost, signal and SNR for the purpose of antenna

tuning.

Caution:

While multiple Antenna Tuning dialogs may be open at any given time, each additional dialog will add

additional traffic on the mesh and use additional resources in the computer running BC|Commander.

Reconfiguring a BreadCrumb during Antenna Tuning may lead to unexpected anomalies in BC|Com-

mander and is strongly discouraged.

To use the Antenna Tuning feature, the computer running BC|Commander must be on the same net-

work/subnet as the BreadCrumbs being monitored and must be able to directly connect to them.

4.3.2 Distance

Many factors determine acceptable distances between BreadCrumb devices when deploying a mesh:

• If many devices are placed too closely together, it is possible that interference will degrade the per-

formance of the system.

• Devices placed too far away or in RF “shadows” may experience total loss of connection.

• RF transmit power and receive sensitivity are important in determining the distances over which the

device will be effective.

• When placing a BreadCrumb device, check the connection status to the nearest available device us-

ing either the BreadCrumb device’s status LED (described in section Status LED), or the BC|Com-

mander management application. If the connection is poor or non-existent, attempt to relocate the

BreadCrumb device closer to another device until an acceptable connection is obtained. If a poor

connection or no connection is made at even relatively close distances, you should refer to the

chapter Troubleshooting.

• When the connection quality is found to be acceptable from BC|Commander, the distance of the

BreadCrumb device from the network can be increased until an optimal balance between distance,

connectivity and tactical placement is achieved.

4.3.3 Weather

Precipitation and fog also act as obstructions blocking the propagation of the wireless network’s radio

waves.

Light fog or precipitation may result in noticeable degradation of wireless network performance. Heavy

precipitation or fog may result in severe performance degradation and possible loss of network connec-

tivity.

If the performance of a well functioning network is degraded by worsening weather conditions, it may be

advisable to add BreadCrumb devices into the network to act as short haul repeaters to counteract the

effects of the weather. An alternative is to move the devices closer together.

4.3.4 Interference

RF interference can degrade network performance and can come from many different sources, including: