background image

16

MobileMapper CE Bluetooth Manager

In order to use corrections from the MobileMapper Beacon, 
the MobileMapper CE's Bluetooth Manager must first be 
used to discover the Beacon product, and then establish a 
connection.
To access the 

Bluetooth

 Manager:

• Tap the Windows butterfly icon in the lower left of the 

MobileMapper CE screen with the stylus. 

• Then access 

Settings>Control Panel>BTManager

. The 

Blue-

tooth

 icon will appear in the system tray.

To turn the 

Bluetooth

 function on or off, you will need to tap 

on the 

Bluetooth

 icon. A window will pop up. From here, 

you will be able to turn this communications feature on or 
off. Ensure that your MobileMapper Beacon system is near-
by and powered. When turned on, the 

Bluetooth

 Manager 

will proceed to initiate a discovery of nearby 

Bluetooth

-ca-

pable systems. The results of this process are displayed be-
low the on and off buttons.
When the discovery is complete, you should see the Mo-
bileMapper Beacon system displayed as 'MMBEACON 
xxxxx', where 'xxxxx' is the last five digits of the multimedia 
access code (MAC) address, indicated on the serial label of 
the MobileMapper Beacon system.
If you press the 'plus (+)' box beside the 'MMBEACON 
xxxxx' device, you will notice that the supported service is 
'BLUETOOTHSERIAL'. Using the stylus, tap and hold on 
the service name. A menu will pop up and choose 'connect'.
In a few moments, you should see the 

Bluetooth

 indicator 

light on the MobileMapper Beacon illuminate. The Mo-
bileMapper CE will also indicate a 

Bluetooth

 connection.

To make sure that your 

MobileMapper CE 

handheld will

automatically connect to 

the same MobileMapper 

Beacon device each time 

you turn on the system, 

in the context-sensitive 

menu tied to the chosen 

Bluetooth

Serial Port, check 

Auto 

Connect

.

Summary of Contents for MobileMapper Beacon

Page 1: ...USER MANUAL MobileMapper Beacon www thalesgroup com navigation ...

Page 2: ...o this publication and the computer programs are subject to the restrictions and limitations imposed by the copyright laws and or the jurisdiction in which you are located Trademarks All product and brand names mentioned in this publication are trademarks of their respective holders FCC Notice This device complies with Part 15 of the FCC Rules Operation is subject to the following two conditions 1...

Page 3: ...al Communications 13 Serial Port Parameters 14 Beacon Lock 15 Knowing What Beacon Station To Use 15 MobileMapper CE Bluetooth Manager 16 Windows CE Configuration Utility 17 Differential Mode 17 Tuning the Beacon Frequency 18 Monitoring Reception Performance 20 Beacon Interference 20 Troubleshooting Reception 21 Coast Guard DGPS Service 23 Radiobeacon Range 23 Radiobeacon Reception 24 Spatial Decor...

Page 4: ......

Page 5: ...egrity using a medium frequency signal This service facilitates the Coast Guard requirements to provide a safe navigation and position service to its users Over the last many years Coast Guard beacons have been used to great success by terrestrial users In fact a program is currently in place to provide dual redundant coverage of beacons throughout the continental United States for a variety of la...

Page 6: ...quipment and provide some general infor mation on Coast Guard beacon technology Key Features Fully integrated Coast Guard beacon receiver and antenna All day battery life using either four alkaline 1 5 V Lith ium or NiMH rechargeable AA type batteries Integrated Bluetooth wireless technology for communi cations with the MobileMapper CE Convenient belt mounted carrying system User interface include...

Page 7: ...u find that the system is incomplete for some reason please contact your point of sale for assistance MobileMapper Beacon System Each MobileMapper Beacon system is composed of MobileMapper Beacon Coast Guard beacon receiver unit 4 AA Batteries Belt mounted carrying system 1 battery clip for easy loading of batteries Warranty card User Manual A PC interface cable for serial communications Note Thou...

Page 8: ... transmitter with a signal to noise ratio greater than seven and is sending the corrections to the GPS receiv er A blue light next to the Bluetooth symbol is illuminated when the unit is sending the corrections to the GPS receiver via the Bluetooth connection The following picture shows the status lights and power but ton located on the top surface of the product Please note the power button and i...

Page 9: ...ease battery loading You may insert four AA batteries into each of the clips drop one clip into the battery compartment and store the spare clip in the mesh pouch on the side of the belt mounted carrying system LED Color Function Red Power indicator when the MobileMapper Beacon is powered this LED will solidly illuminate Note This LED does not have a label but is connected to the Power Button to i...

Page 10: ...t is important to insert the batteries into the clip with alter nating polarity A fully loaded clip is shown below As shown on this photo the polarity of the batteries is posi tive negative positive negative You can easily slide the batteries up and into the clip The battery clips are also marked with plus and minus signs to indicate the polarity of the batteries If you use batteries without polar...

Page 11: ...nt door come loose and pull the door away from the unit You will find that the fastener disengages and pops toward you You can then use the fastener to open the door At this point you may load either four individual batteries into the MobileMapper Beacon or load the batteries into the clip and insert the clip assembly into the battery compart ment The battery clip easily inserts into the compartme...

Page 12: ...e door down screw the knurled knob into the unit assuring a good seal Warning Please use only batteries of the same type Do not mix alkaline batteries with 1 5 V Lithium or NiMH batteries Please do not mix batteries of different charge levels This can cause the batteries to fail causing damage to you or the Mo bileMapper Beacon ...

Page 13: ... the red LED light turns on When the MobileMapper Beacon is turned off it still draws a small amount of current from the batteries If you will not use the receiver for a number of weeks you may wish to re move the batteries so they do not lose their charge You may place the batteries in the belt mounted carrying system so you know to place them back in the receiver prior to use ...

Page 14: ...optimize signal reception This is easy to do if you place the Beacon on your belt on the hip opposite to the hand you use to carry your MobileMapper or MobileMapper CE receiver For example if you will carry the GPS receiver in your left hand place the MobileMapper Beacon on your right hip Doing this keeps the Beacon away from the GPS receiver it keeps the top horizontal and it allows you to check ...

Page 15: ...will be limited to a maximum of 10 m As Bluetooth transmits and receives at 2 4 GHz it is a line of sight system This means that the MobileMapper Beacon and the receiving device require a line of sight between them in order to communicate This is critical if you are using the two devices toward their maximum operating rate from each other For example you may use the MobileMapper CE away from a veh...

Page 16: ... identified with the Bluetooth logo as shown in the following figure A successful Bluetooth con nection between these devices will be present as long as the blue LED light on the MobileMapper Beacon is on If you are using the MobileMapper Beacon system with an alternate GPS system that uses Bluetooth communications please follow the instructions for that system on how to per form a Bluetooth disco...

Page 17: ...u will notice that beside the battery door there is a rubber boot that covers a data socket Written on this rubber boot is the word Data The round 7 pin connector of the PC interface cable plugs into this socket There is a white dot on both the socket and the 7 pin plug of the cable To mate these connec tors align the two dots together and simply push the connec tor onto the socket To remove the c...

Page 18: ...be tween the two systems In this case you will need to know the port settings of the MobileMapper Beacon which fol low Baud Rate 4800 Data bits 8 Stop bits 1 Parity None In the event that you are connecting the MobileMapper Beacon to a non Thales branded GPS receiver you may need to plug a gender changer and null modem adapter into the DB9 end of the Beacon s serial cable Using the optional serial...

Page 19: ... configuration tool supplied in the GPS Utilities folder of the MobileMapper CE or the standalone Mo bileMapper Beacon configuration utility that can be down loaded from ftp thalesnavigation com Using this tool you can tune the Beacon to specific frequen cies and coast guard beacon stations and monitor the current frequency or station being used and the resulting reception performance Knowing What...

Page 20: ...nearby Bluetooth ca pable systems The results of this process are displayed be low the on and off buttons When the discovery is complete you should see the Mo bileMapper Beacon system displayed as MMBEACON xxxxx where xxxxx is the last five digits of the multimedia access code MAC address indicated on the serial label of the MobileMapper Beacon system If you press the plus box beside the MMBEACON ...

Page 21: ...e of operation There are three choices from which you may choose The first choice is to not use any corrections The second and default is to use corrections from the internal WAAS EGNOS demodulator To use the MobileMapper Beacon with the CE system you must choose the Beacon option This will instruct the Mo bileMapper CE system to look for correction data incoming from a certain port To use the bea...

Page 22: ...s a bias can creep into the positioning solution This is the nature of local area differential GPS Using the same beacon station helps to en sure that your data is as consistent as possible If for some reason the beacon to which you want to tune is not operating you will obviously need to use another station if available Beacon stations are reliable but sometimes need to be maintained or may be hi...

Page 23: ...w displays the content of the Status tab You will see in this window the current tuning settings including the station name frequency but rate and station ID Below this information is the lock condition signal strength SS measured in dBµV and signal to noise ratio SNR measured in dB The following section provides guidance on evaluating re ception quality given a particular SNR ...

Page 24: ...they emit it has the potential to interfere with beacon reception There are other sources of noise such as power lines engine electronics of vehicles power transformers and the like The MobileMapper Beacon system is able to provide diag nostic information to the DGPS Configuration application that you can run on your PC or on the MobileMapper CE system This utility can allow you to monitor the cur...

Page 25: ... within one or two feet Troubleshooting Reception The first thing to confirm when troubleshooting beacon re ception problems is to monitor the lock LED indicator If it s on the receiver is locked If you find that it s on most of the time chances are that there s sufficient data being passed to the GPS system to allow differential correction to happen If you find that the light is most often off or...

Page 26: ...her be environmental noise or weak signal If it s a noise problem the signal strength will likely be high For ex ample if you see an SS value of say 50 dB and an SNR of 5 you can be assured that the environment is jamming the reception of the signal There s not much that can be done in a situation like this unless you can identify the source of noise Sometimes this takes a bit of looking around yo...

Page 27: ...he signal radiates away from the transmitting antenna The expected range of a broadcast also depends upon the conductivity of the surface over which it travels A signal will propagate further over a surface with high conductivity than over a surface with low conductivity Lower conductiv ity surfaces such as dry infertile soil absorb the power of the transmission more than higher conductivity surfa...

Page 28: ...f noise affect beacon reception and in clude Engine noise Alternator noise Noise from Power lines DC to AC inverting equipment Electric devices such as PDA s cellular phones CRT s electric motors fans and solenoids Noise generated by this type of equipment can mask the bea con signal reducing or impairing reception depending on its magnitude and proximity Weak sources of noise can still jab recept...

Page 29: ...without user fees so your choice of which sys tem to use must be made according to different criteria Benefits of Coast Guard Beacon Low Frequency the low frequency of beacon is a signif icant strength when working in areas where a line of sight is blocked to WAAS or EGNOS such as under can opy or in urban canyon The frequency of beacon is located below AM radio stations As you ve likely expe rien...

Page 30: ...fits of WAAS EGNOS High Frequency WAAS EGNOS transmit with a pseudo GPS signal at L1 frequency This signal will be available anywhere the GPS receiver s antenna can see the satellite This provides a very wide operating area with the exception of behind certain large objects that can mask the signal Robust Reception Being line of sight and being trans mitted on L1 frequency the WAAS EGNOS signal is...

Page 31: ...types 1 2 3 5 6 7 9 and 16 A DGPS beacon will broadcast either Type 1 or Type 9 messages both of which contain similar informa tion These two messages contain pseudorange cor rections and range rate corrections to each GPS satellite The Type 2 message contains delta differential cor rections that are used when the remote receiver is using a different satellite navigation message than used by the b...

Page 32: ...DGPS is often referred to as a local area ser vice as the data broadcast is appropriate for use within the coverage range of the station Radiobeacon Coverage The following figure shows the approximate radiobeacon coverage throughout the world In this figure light shaded regions note current coverage with beacon stations symbol ized as white dots Please note that the extent of coverage shown is app...

Page 33: ......

Page 34: ...86 10 6566 0246 Email mobilemappingapac thalesnavigation com In France 33 2 28 09 38 00 Fax 33 2 28 09 39 39 In Germany 49 81 6564 7930 Fax 49 81 6564 7950 In Russia 7 095 956 5400 Fax 7 095 956 5360 In UK 44 199 385 2436 Fax 44 870 429 9236 In the Netherlands 31 78 61 57 988 Fax 31 78 61 52 027 Email mobilemappingemea thalesnavigation com Web site www thalesgroup com navigation 2005 Thales S A Al...

Reviews: