MAGELLAN MSS - Mobile Satellite Internet System MAGELLAN MSS Users Manual Updated 3/30/2006
INTRODUCTION ....................................................................................... 3 MAGELLAN FEATURES ................................................................ 3 SYSTEM OVERVIEW.......................................................................... 4 MAGELLAN SYSTEM COMPONENTS...................................................................... 7 STANDARD OPERATION ........................................................... 12 USING THE MAGELLAN ADMINISTRATIVE SCREEN.......
INTRODUCTION Congratulations on your purchase of the MAGELLAN MSS (Mobile Satellite System) from Ground Control. This unique product will create a high-speed Internet network for your Truck, Trailer or RV at the touch of a button. The MAGELLAN is manufactured by Ground Control and fully supported 27-7. If you have an issue, we will be there to help. There are 3 manuals associated with the MAGELLAN: USERS MANUAL – General instruction and operation of the MAGELLAN.
• • • • • • 4 compatible. Mac, PC or any TCP-IP equipment Remote Administration via browser…no software to load or run. Easily swap satellite modems commissioned to different satellites for quick backup solutions or extending a footprint range. Optional DirecTV / Dish Network Satellite TV with universal bracket Lightweight Design – Under 75 lbs. Monthly Internet Service and Support provided by Ground Control 24x7 We hope you find using the MAGELLAN a liberating experience.
WORKS EVERYWHERE YOU TRAVEL Well almost…The MAGELLAN will create a connection to the Internet from any location you park your rig and where you have a clear view of the Southern sky. Satellite transmissions need line of site, which means that if a tree or building is between you and the satellite you wish to connect to, you will not be able to make a connection. A handheld compass will allow you to know the approximate direction of your satellite so you may avoid obstacles while parking.
Wireless (or Wi-Fi) is a great feature allowing you to work anywhere inside, or outside (within range) of the rig. You also don’t need to connect anything. The MAGELLAN is completely self-contained and will create a Local Area Network at the touch of a button. SIMPLE OPERATION The MAGELLAN Remote Control Panel The MAGELLAN Administrative window You may operate the MAGELLAN Automatic Dish from the 6 ¼ inch wide Remote Control Panel by simply pressing the “Find Satellite” button.
MAGELLAN SYSTEM COMPONENTS The MAGELLAN is made up of 4 components: 1. The Automatic Pointing Satellite Dish on the roof 2. The MAGELLAN Remote Control Panel 3. The Wireless Router 4. The HughesNet DW7000 or DW7700 Satellite Modems THE MAGELLAN AUTOMATIC POINTING SATELLITE DISH The first component is the MAGELLAN dish itself.
The MAGELLAN .74 meter system stands 48” high when deployed, and stows to 13” for traveling. The MSS .95 meter system stands approximately 54” high. Height (stowed) – 14” Length (stowed) – 59” Width (stowed) – 53” Weight – 85lbs The .95 meter systems allows for far greater speeds then the .74 meter system. The dish weighs about 75 lbs (.74 system) and 85 lbs (.95 system) on top of the roof and when stowed, is 13” or 14” high… well under the height of roof mounted AirConditioners.
MAGELLAN is requires one more axis (Skew) to be aligned with the orbiting/stationary satellite 22,300 miles above the Equator. THE REMOTE CONTROL PANEL The Remote Panel is 6 ¼ inches wide and may be mounted to any surface inside of the rig. Two-sided Velcro tape will work fine. By pressing one of the buttons on the MAGELLAN Remote Panel you can “Find Satellite” or “Stow Dish” without the need of a computer.
THE WIRELESS (Wi-Fi) ROUTER The Magellan ships with a Linksys Wireless G Router that connects as many computers to the dish it as you like, either directly by Ethernet cable or by Wireless connection (use of a hub is needed for more than 3 directly connected computers). SECURITY CONCERNS – Although the wireless functionality is a great benefit to most, you may easily disable it with a simple button click from the router administrative screen.
DRYDOCKING - For those who need to draw as little power as possible, you may turn off just the MAGELLAN (by simply unplugging it from the power bar) and this will not affect your Internet connectivity. Of course the dish must have acquired satellite before it can be unplugged.
STANDARD OPERATION BEFORE YOU RAISE THE DISH Park the vehicle in as flat of a location as possible where you have a clear view of the Southern sky. Use a compass to help you approximate the direction of the satellite so you can quickly notice obvious obstacles. Owners of vehicles that have stabilizing jacks should deploy them when using the mobile satellite system. IMPORTANT FACTS – the more level you are parked, the quicker the MAGELLAN will find the satellite.
RAISING THE DISH – Using the Remote Panel Press the “Power” button on the MAGELLAN Remote Control Panel. The Green power light will come on in a second or two. If red lights are blinking wait a minimum of 90 seconds for the system to fully boot. This booting process is actually the MAGELLAN system waiting for the DW7000 HughesNet modems to boot. Once the modems are read by the MAGELLAN, only the Power light will remain on but the other lights will stop blinking. Press the “Find Satellite” button.
Make sure that you stow the dish BEFORE you move the vehicle. If the standing dish makes contact with bridges, trees limbs or other obstacles, it will destroy the dish. EMERGENCY STOW - In the unlikely event that the dish is up and does not respond to stow commands, (from the Remote Panel or from the Administrative screen), please review Appendix E for ways to stow the dish manually.
Open a browser and type in 192.168.1.2 on the Address line to access the MAGELLAN Administrative Screen. The MAGELLAN Admin window will appear. (If it does not appear, check that all cables are connected, reboot everything and try again). Note that the “Find Satellite”, “Stow Dish” and “Stop” button at the bottom of the Admin window. These buttons behave identically to the buttons on the Remote Panel when the panel is turned on.
• • • 16 Status: Signal Found: Peaking Status: Crosspol: Testing Status: Passed Tests: System Online Elevation Watch the Signal Quality meter as the system is Peaking Azimuth and Elevation. During the “Crosspol” phase, the dish is communicating with the satellite in order to skew the dish face. You will see mostly Skew movements during this phase. Once Crosspol passes, the dish is connected to the Internet.
THE DW7000 STATUS HUGHESNET MODEM The DW7000 are the satellite modems that connect your network to the Internet via HughesNet services. And similar to the MAGELLAN Mobile Satellite System, the DW7000 is web accessible, and will show your current state of connectivity to HughesNet. To access it, type in 192.168.0.1 on the MAGELLAN network. Note on the above screen that System Status is red and under it read “Problems”. This is because your dish is stowed and not on signal.
A helpful trick in troubleshooting an Internet connection is to click on the error itself. It will open up an explanation window showing what problem is actually happening. If you want to get information about your satellite connection, click on the round “System Info” button. This screen below is used to troubleshoot your HughesNet connection if you are having problems. Spend some time on the DW7000 pages to get familiar with how it functions.
CONNECTING COMPUTERS In this manual, it is assumed that you have a standard installation that uses the standard ISP service with no Public (Static) IP address(es). If you require a Public IP, your network administrator should be more than capable of configuring the MAGELLAN system for all connected computers. Static Routing is beyond the scope of this manual. Every computer connecting to the MAGELLAN network must be able to receive an IP address automatically.
If you connect by Ethernet sometimes and Wireless other times, then you must set network settings for both types of connections. Double Click on “Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) from the window that appears (to make the window below appear). Make sure to check the box that will bring up your network connection on the task bar as show as a nifty trick to observer your connectivity.
Click on OK on all open windows. Once this is done, you may communicate with the Router. DIRECT ETHERNET CONNECTION If you have set your Network settings to “Obtain and IP address automatically”, then there is nothing more you have to do. You may connect to the MAGELLAN network. Reboot your computer if you are having troubles connecting.
WIRELESS CONNECTION If you are connecting by wireless card from your computer, you may sometimes be presented one or more wireless connection if more than one access point is located in your vicinity. You may also be presented by a login name and password if your wireless network is password protected.
ACCESSING THE MAGELLAN WIRELESS SYSTEM STEP 1 – Open up the Control Panel STEP 2 – Open up “Network” or “Network Connections” from the control panel 23
The Wireless Network Connection screen will list ALL available Wi-Fi connections you may connect to. In this case, there are two networks to choose from. Notice that CICWIRELESS is unsecured. We named our Access Point “MyMobileNet” so this is the network you will connect to. Simply double click on the box to bring up a password screen seen below. NOTE - Your Wireless Network Screen may be slightly different, but they all work relatively the same.
Now if the MAGELLAN dish is up and online, simply open a browser and start surfing the Internet. If the MAGELLAN is not online, you may access the MAGELLAN administrative screen (192.168.1.2) or the Router at (192.168.1.1), or the DW7000 modems at (192.168.0.1) from any browser window. (Make sure you add these to your favorites list) NOTE - The next time your computer connects to this network, you password will be saved and you will automatically log in without having to type the password in again.
Instructions for configuring you email accounts may be found at: http://www.groundcontrol.com/support.htm There are several FLASH programs that will easily guide you through this process. OPTIMIZATION It is wise to optimize all client computers connected to the MAGELLAN system to take advantage of web acceleration and other speed accelerators of HughesNet. Please visit http://www.groundcontrol.com/supportdirecway.htm and download the LCCU (LAN Client Configuration) file.
APPENDIX A – Explanation of MAGELLAN Admin Window BETA ADMIN SCREEN The MAGELLAN Administrative Screen may be reached from any connected computer by typing in 192.168.1.2 on any browser. On the above screen, the HughesNet DW7000 modems shows a Signal Quality of 11 (anything under 31 is offline), the current Status of the dish (Stowed), and the angles of Azimuth, Elevation and Skew. Below is a closer look at the other screens.
INPUT DATA WINDOW GPS – The Input Data window shows that GPS has been acquired. (The GPS Antenna is located inside of the HughesNet Dish LNB cover at the end of the dish arm). It sometimes takes a minute for GPS to be read after the dish is booted. Vehicle Heading - shows a magnetic heading of 117.3 degrees. This should match a handheld compass. If not, you will want to click on the “Compass Calibration” link on the bottom of the “Status” window seen above.
OVERRIDING GPS Sometimes you will want to override your GPS settings if GPS can not be found… such as being parked inside of a building where the dish may be pointing out a door, but the GPS can not get a fix on your location. Simply enter you GPS location and press on Calculate. OVERRIDING SATELLITE TRANSPONDERS The “SATELLITE:” item in the override screen is normally used for advanced cross-pol alignments.
CALCULATED SKY POSITION WINDOW The center box on the Magellan Administration screen shows the estimated location of the satellite based for Azimuth, Elevation and Skew in degrees. OVERRIDE These override controls allow you to calculate your own satellite coordinates. These controls are not normally used in the normal use of the MAGELLAN. STATUS WINDOW The Status Window is a great resource to troubleshoot your system if problems occur. TX:6 RX:3 – This is the actual status of the DW7000 modems.
You may enter the number of degrees you wish to move any of the axis by typing in the number next to the “Step Size” on the axis you wish to move. Click on the arrows will move that axis the number of degrees entered. HUGHES MODEMS This link opens the HughesNet DW7000 Administrative screen. Note how the DW7000 window on the same screen as the MAGELLAN Admin Window. You may always bring up the DW7000 screen on a different browser window. Simply type in 192.168.0.1 to access this screen.
SET UP SCREEN This link on the MAGELLAN Status Window shows default IP address for your DW7000 and MAGELLAN systems. You may need to make changes to this screen if your customer has a Static IP address. COMPASS CALIBRATION The compass should have already been calibrated by your installer… But there may come a time where you think the compass could be better set for normal operation.
Click on Compass Calibration Then enter in the vehicle heading Once you click on “Save Settings” the dish will move about for a few minutes and then “Finish” the calibration. The dish will not stow after the dish compass has calibrated. After the calibration, the Vehicle Heading of the Administrative window should match (within 1-2 degrees) the vehicle heading you entered. That’s it for compass calibration… You do not need to move the vehicle.
APPENDIX B – ROUTER CONFIGURING THE The Linksys default setting is DHCP, which means it will assign any connected computer an IP address, which is the standard installation for the MAGELLAN. To start…Check to see that your computer is connected directly to the Router via an Ethernet cable, (or by wireless device). Type in 192.168.1.1 in the browser window. Above is the default login name and password to the router.
The router administrative screen defaults to the “Setup” menu option on the “Basic Setup” screen. There is no need to change anything on this screen if you are doing a standard DHCP install. Make sure the “Local IP Address” is 192.168.1.1 (sometimes the router is not defaulted at this number). TURNING OFF/ON WI-FI You may want the ability to create a Wi-Fi Hot-Spot for connecting their computer to the Magellan system from anywhere inside (or outside) the vehicle. And then again, you may not.
NAMING YOUR WI-FI CONNECTION You will want to name your Wireless Access Point. The name you choose for your access point will broadcasted and displayed to any computer trying to locate a wireless network to connect to.
You may choose one of eleven wireless channels. The standard channel out of the box is 6. Use the pull down window to select a different channel. This action will not hide your network from view to those on different channels, but may help if you have interference from other networks transmitting on the same channel. ENABLE SECURITY ON WI-FI You have the option of password protecting the customer’s Wi-Fi connection from being accessed by outsiders.
Write Down the Passwords for later use, or copy and paste them to a document or text file for cutting and pasting later. Remember, these passwords are only for those who want to connect to the Wi-Fi router. If you forget the passwords, you’ll need to directly connect to the Wi-Fi router with an Ethernet cable.
APPENDIX C – WI-FI CONNECTIONS TROUBLESHOOTING Make sure your computer’s network settings are correct (review the section on “Connecting Computers”), and reboot your computer. Try rebooting the MAGELLAN system via the Power Bar to reset the router. Sometimes the router will simply lock up and it needs a power reboot. Try accessing the router Administrative Screens by typing in 192.168.1.1. You will be presented with the login window of the Linksys.
APPENDIX D SOFTWARE UPDATE MOBILE From time to time, Ground Control will make available new software to update your dish electronics. The upgrades are always free and may be downloaded automatically while the dish is online or from the Ground Control support pages of the MAGELLAN system. AUTOMATIC MAGELLAN FLASH UPDATE While you’re online, open up the MAGELLAN Main screen by typing in 192.168.1.2 in the browser window.
MANUAL MAGELLAN FLASH UPDATE If you are not able to use the Automatic update for one reason or another, you can download the updater software from the Ground Control website and perform the update using software. Below are step-by-step instructions for properly updating your mobile system software. STEP 1 – Download Software From the support pages of the Ground Control web site, click on the version of software you wish to update your mobile mount to from the support pages.
IMPORTANT – Test the connection to the dish by typing in 129.168.1.2 to make sure your dish is responding. STEP 4 – Run the Updater Program Inside the folder you just unzipped, run the Update program AutoUpdate.exe. You may wish to read the Revision History file to show you what changes have been made to this version of software.
The AutoUpdate window will appear with the IP address 192.168.1.2 already in the window. This is the IP address of the mobile satellite dish. Make sure that the folder you are looking at is the correct folder. Use the pull down window to change it if you need to. The Open window will not always display the folder that you ran the program from. Click on Update to update the Mobile Mount The status bar window will show progress of the update.
(If you don’t see progress here and the program times out, make sure that you disable Zone Alarm or other firewall that keeps programs from accessing the Internet) Click on OK. STEP 5 – Reboot the dish Unplug the dish power. Wait 15 seconds and then plug the power back in. Refresh the Dish Administrative window. The new version will appear on this window. That’s it… You’re dish is updated.
APPENDIX E – EMERGENCY STOW It is unlikely that your dish will not be able to stow through the Remote Panel or the Administrative screen. Please review the ways below in which you may stow the dish. MANUAL STOW PROCESS 1 – Try this first If you do not have power to the dish, please review the other Manual Stow Procedures 2, 3 and 4 below. • Reboot the entire MAGELLAN system via the power bar and try again using the Remote Control Panel Stow button or the Administrative screen on the computer.
of the cover. STEP 5 – Find the covered circuit board on one side of the MAGELLAN. Remove both plastic covers. STEP 6 – Locate the holes on the circuit board for you fingers. Pressing on one will raise elevation, pressing on the other will lower elevation. MANUAL STOW #3 – Remove the Elevation Motor, which will allow the Elevation gear to move freely. MANUAL STOW PROCESS 4 – The worst of all scenarios is actually removing the MAGELLAN.
APPENDIX X – TROUBLESHOOTING REBOOT FIRST One of the best solutions to most problems is to reboot everything and try again. SEARCHING ISSUES DISH GOES UP, SEARCHES, BUT THE SATELLITE IS NOT FOUND If you believe your dish is searching the wrong part of the sky, you may “override” the compass heading and enter your own heading on the MAGELLAN admin. Please refer to Appendix A on “Overriding Vehicle Heading”.
MSS RESETTING An MSS Magellan only resets for three reasons: 1. The software will reset if connection to the modems is lost for 10 seconds. If the modems are not present when the power is applied the unit will not reset because the connection was not available at power up. To trouble shoot this problem unplug the modem from the router and power up the mss, if the resetting problem stops you know the problem is Ethernet related.
MAGELLAN SPECIFICATIONS BANDWIDTH SERVICE (Via HughesNet) Download Speed…………………….. Normally 400 to 1500 Kbps Upload Speed…….………………….. Normally 30 to 100 Kbps Public IP Address……………………. Optional Protocol………………………………. TDMA VOIP Phone Service………………… Included SATELLITE DISH (Both .74 and .95 systems) Satellite Acquire Time (from stowed).. Normally between 2-5 minutes Automated Cross Poll acquisition…… Normally between 30 seconds to 2 minutes Reflector Type………………………..
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