User's Manual

Company Confidential 60 Raveon Technologies Corp.
Using the StingRay Modem – Packet Mode.
8.11. Baud Rate Selection
In Streaming Mode, the user data may still enter the modem at any baud rate, as
set with the ATBD x command. The StingRay modem will buffer the data and
send it out over the air in the same order as it enters the modem. When the
buffer is empty and there is no more data coming into the modem, it will
automatically de-key the radio and go back into the receive mode. The StingRay
modem will send a hidden end-of-message signal to the receiving modem, thus
avoiding any extra data bytes “dribble bytes” from coming out of the user serial
port. When the modem is operating with very weak signals, the end-of-message
signal may be obscured, and missed by the receiving StingRay. In this case,
additional noise bytes may come out of the user serial port.
While receiving, the modem will also output the receive data out the serial port at
the rate set by the ATBD command. If the serial port baud-rate is slower than
the over-the-air rate, an internal buffer in the StingRay modem will hold the data
as it is sent out the serial port.
8.12. Bit Errors
Unlike Packet Mode operation, there is no error-detection nor error-correction in
the Streaming Mode, so user data may contain bit errors. The user’s application
must be able to handle these errors or additional bytes of noise data.
If the application that is using the StingRay cannot tolerate have erroneous data
when the channel is noisy, the modem should be operated in the Packet Mode
instead of Streaming mode ( In Packet Mode, data is always first checked for bit-
errors, and never outputted if it detects any errors).
The end of a transmission is detected by the receiving modem by the presence
of a special end-of-message signal. Transmitting StingRays automatically put
the end-of-message signal out after the user’s data has been transmitted. If the
receiving modem does not receive this signal (due to noise or interference), the
receiving modem may continue to output some more data, until it detects that the
RF carrier is gone, or the received signal is actually noise. This may take a byte
or two of time, and during this time period, the receiving modem may output
random noise bytes.
8.13. Carrier Detect
To reduce, and virtually eliminate bit errors and additional noise bytes, the user
may configure the StingRay to require and RF carrier Detect before receiving any
data. Because the RF carrier Detect Threshold is set above the noise-floor of the
receiver, bit-errors will be rare if RF carrier is required to receive. By default, the
StingRay does not require RF carrier detect to receive. To enable it, use the
ATRF 1 command. To disable the need for RF carrier detect, us the ATRF 0
command (Factory default).
When ATRF is 0, the modem will be more sensitive, and be able to receive weak
signals, but there is more likely to be bit errors when the signals are weak.