We have (5) older Freewave DGR-115R radios that we used in Canada about 15 years ago before the PAKBUS protocol was finalized. I am wondering if anyone has configured DGR-115R radios to work with PAKBUS and CR1000s.
We use DGR and FGR radios with CR1000 loggers (and older loggers) in Freewave's point-to-point mode. The radios provide a bidirectional communication channel, and it doesn't really matter what is going over it.
Campbell's LoggerNet can be configured with a generic modem device to make the connection. The radios can also use the logger terminal mode, sometimes useful, without having to use pakbus.
Does that mean you have to setup the call list with the Freewave serial numbers? Has anyone gotten them to work in transparent PAKBUS mode so that we don't need to do too much setup on each radio?
Yes, the callbook of the master/base radio will need to be configured with the site/slave radio if you want to use the ATDTn calling command, where n is the callbook entry number.
An alternative is to use the ATXCnATDm calling command to call radio number m (7 digits) using callbook entry n to determine the repeater(s) to use.
I had trouble getting the LoggerNet generic modem device configured sufficiently well to use it directly, but that was several years ago and it's probably doable.
We use a separate software 'commserver' that allows the loggernet device to call the target site by name, issuing 'call mysite' instead of 'AT...', and can handle multiple base/master radios, dynamically choose repeater paths, etc.. But that's probably only needed for larger networks that can't fit everything in the freewave callbook.
I know that folks have used Freewaves in multipoint mode, and I think that makes more active use of the pakbus features than the way we use the radios. I'm pretty sure there are write-ups on that scheme available.
Freewave has maintained good compatibility with the older DGR radios, and for our purposes they are interchangable.
If you set up the DGR-115s in multipoint mode, do you need a null modem when connecting to the datalogger? Does anyone have an app note on CR1000 to DGR-115 communication?
Using the radio's terminal, configure one radio to be a point to multipoint master. Configure the other radios to be point to multipoint slaves. You'll need to make sure that the radios have the same freq key, radio id, network, etc settings so that they are on the same network. Then put a unique PB address in each PB device (logger, software, etc.). Connect the DGR to the logger RS232 via null modem cable.