Instruction manual

APPENDIX A. TROUBLESHOOTING
A-6
A2.4 RADIO (RF)
This section deals with troubleshooting radio
network from the software perspective. It does
not give specifics on radio transmission
problems regarding antennas, etc. Information
on these can be found in the RF Telemetry
manual.
The switches in the base RF232T should be set
so the address is unique regarding other RF
stations and not set to 255 (255 is reserved for
Phone to RF bases).
The first step is to verify communication with the
base RF232T. Carefully examine the network
health screen, note if the base RF232T is red or
blue along with the remote that is not
communicating or if just the remote. This helps
to determine if the base is working or not.
If multiple remote sites are in use with the base
RF232T, does any of the remotes work. If
some sites work that would tend to indicate
either a Net Description problem or a hardware
problem for the remote sites that do not work.
To check communication with the base
RF232T:
• Examine the PORT ACTIVITY box on the
NetAdmin main screen.
• Select the COM port used to communicate
with the base RF232T.
• Select the RESET COUNTERS buttons.
• Examine the CHARS TX, and CHARS RX,
and RETRIES boxes. The TX box indicates
how many characters are sent to the base
RF232T and the RX indicates how many
characters are received. The TX box will be
non-zero when communication is
attempted. The RX will be non-zero when
the base RF232T responds. When the
base RF232T fails to respond, the TX box
will be growing larger while the RX box
remains at zero. If the RX box remains at
zero, the SWF$.LOG file will have warnings
and faults like the following. This indicates
the base is not communicating. Note that
RF2BASE is the RF232T station.
'08-24-94
14:26:00','W','PC1','RF2Base','SerLine
timeout retry on: COM1.'
'08-24-94
14:26:01','W','PC1','RF2Base','SerLine
timeout retry on: COM1.'
'08-24-94
14:26:02','W','PC1','RF2Base','SerLine
timeout retry on: COM1.'
'08-24-94
14:26:03','W','PC1','RF2Base','SerLine
timeout retry on: COM1.'
'08-24-94
14:26:03','F','PC1','RF2Base','SerLine
timeout retry on: COM1.'
When communication with the base fails any
communication with remotes will also fail.
There will probably be messages generated for
the various remotes. These messages may
cease when communication with the base
works.
Things to check include:
• Ensure that the correct COM port and Baud
rate are selected in the Net Description for
the RF232T Base.
• Is the RF232T turned on and plugged in.
• Check each cable to ensure it is connected
properly including the 9-pin ribbons
connecting the small circuit board to the
RF95T inside the RF232T.
• The cable connecting the computer and the
RF232T should not be a “Null Modem”
cable but should be a standard serial
RS232 cable.
• Swap cables if spares are available.
• Check that the base address is set correctly
with switches including switch 9 (see RF
Telemetry manual).
When the RF232T is powered on, the carrier
detect light should blink twice. If it blinks
continuously there maybe a hardware problem.
Note that the carrier detect light flashes in