User's Manual

8-6
• If you have multiple terminals on one base and your Terminal firmware is
not RFx9077J or higher, you should upgrade your firmware by down-
loading the latest off the website http://www.barcodehq.com on the down-
loads page. This will reduce contention between terminals by up to 50%.
• If you have good response time everywhere but on the outer fringe area,
you may need a Relay.
• If you have several Terminals on one Base Station, consider adding
another Base Station and splitting the Terminals to reduce contention. If
you are running the RFDEMO program, the application response time is
instantaneous, so any delays you see are due to radio traffic.
I'm not getting the distance I need...
To maximize range, the Base Stations and Relays should be located:
1. At the center of the area of intended coverage, and
2. As high as possible - mounted on the ceiling of a room with the antenna
pointing downward works the best. Sometimes just raising the Base
Station to 12 feet will dramatically increase the distance, especially in
warehouses or grocery stores with tall shelving. A Base Station mounted
on the wall with the antenna parallel to the floor is the worst position.
To accurately determine the hardware required to cover a particular area, you
should use the Site Test mode built in-to the RF Terminal.
I can't communicate with the RS-232 port on my host CPU...
• This is one of the biggest problems called in. If you are not using our
cables, check your cables first. If you have an extension cable, remove it
for testing. If you have an extension cable of 80 feet or more attached to a
Windows host, you need to be sure certain pins are not attached in the DB9
or DB25. See Appendix C; RF Serial Pin-outs.
• If you are using the PICK or UNIX operating systems, be sure you have set
the Base Station to be "XON/XOFF Sensitive". You need to do this to
prevent the XOFF code being sent as a "Base Initialization" message.
• Windows 95,98,2000,ME, NT; COM port setup should also be changed to
turn off XON/XOFF. XON/XOFF is the default for Windows. You set
these through the control panel, System, Device Manager, Ports (COM &
LPT), COM Port, Port Settings, Flow Control. Set Flow Control to None.