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CONFIGURATOR 2.3x |
(Not available on V4)
1 Purpose
2 Description
2.1 Menu
2.2 VIEW CONFIG
2.3 ESS ID
2.4 SUBNET MASK
2.5 DEFAULT ROUTER
2.6 MU IP ADDRESS
2.7 DIVERSITY
2.8 MU SLEEP MODE
2.9 BOOT MODE
2.10 PWR MANAGEMENT
2.11 BUFFERS
2.12 REXMIT DELAY
2.13 RATE CONTROL
2.14 SCAN / RF OP
The main purpose of this utility program is to enable the terminal operator to configure certain essential parameters for radio communications. This program must be run after the radio driver has been loaded as the configuration parameters are saved in the radio card flash memory which is accessed using radio driver services.
This utility program is called when the terminal boots or by "F3 - S24 Config." from main menu.
The program provides menus for editing many of the radio configuration parameters used to communicate in a Spectrum24 network. The values are saved in a buffer in the flash memory of the radio card. The current parameters are set in a text file, NET.CFG, on the RAMdisk. NET.CFG is used both by the radio driver and the TCP/IP stack to obtain their configuration parameters.
Initially, the program presents a menu as shown below.
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CONFIGURATOR 2.3x |
The up and down cursor keys are used to select an option from the menu. The current selectable option is indicated by reverse video. To return to the menu above use the Clear key and to select an option use the Enter key. Using the Clear key in this menu has the same effect as selecting Exit, the configurator terminates execution.
On terminals with small display screens, the top and bottom lines of the above menu are shown and the menu items scroll using the remaining lines of the display.
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VIEW CONFIG |
If “View config params” is selected, the terminal IEEE address (also known as the MAC address), the terminal IP address, the radio firmware version number and date, and the net id, or ESS Id, are displayed. This is NOT a data entry screen. It is provided to display information frequently required in diagnostic situations. Clear or Enter returns to the main configuration menu.
If the configurator is executing over a radio driver that uses the IEEE 802.11 protocol then this screen has the following format.
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ESS ID |
If “ESS Id” is selected from the main configuration menu, the above screen is displayed. The current setting of the ESS Id is shown in up to 32 ASCII characters and may be changed by backspacing over the current value and typing a new value. Alternatively the current setting can be deleted using Ctrl-D and the new ESS Id entered in its entirity. Enter must be pressed to effect any changes typed.
The ESS Id identifies the radio network and differentiates between different radio networks. All equipment on one 802.11 network must use the same ESS Id.
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SUBNET MASK |
If “Subnet Mask” is selected from the main configuration menu, the above screen is displayed. The current setting of the Subnet Mask is shown and may be changed by backspacing over the current value and typing a new value. Enter must be pressed to effect any changes typed. A new value is entered in decimal form and each part of the four part address should be in the range 0 to 255.
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DEFAULT ROUTER |
If “Default Router” is selected from the main configuration menu, the above screen is displayed. The current setting of the Default Router is shown and may be changed by backspacing over the current value and typing a new value. Enter must be pressed to effect any changes typed. A new value is entered in decimal form and each part of the four part address should be in the range 0 to 255.
The default router address is the address of the node to which all packets, destined for remote networks, will be sent.
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MU IP ADDRESS |
If “MU IP Address” is selected from the main configuration menu, the above screen is displayed. The current setting of the MU IP Address is shown and may be changed by backspacing over the current value and typing a new value. Enter must be pressed to effect any changes typed. A new value is entered in decimal form and each part of the four part address should be in the range 0 to 255.
NOTE: It is only necessary to enter an IP address if the terminal is not going to be allocated an IP address by a boot server or DHCP server. Allocation of an IP address is part of the BOOTP and Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) process.
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DIVERSITY |
If “Diversity” is selected from the main configuration menu, the above screen is displayed. The current setting of the Diversity is shown and may be changed by using the up and down arrow keys to toggle between the two valid settings. Enter must be pressed to effect any change made.
If diversity is set “Yes”, the radio firmware will attempt to use both antenna ports for communications. This setting will give better communications if two antennas are used with the radio and distinctly worse communications if only one antenna is used. It is important to match the diversity setting with the number of antennas in use. The LRT3840, PDT3140 and PDT3540 are each equipped with two antennas. The wearable, PDT6140 and PDT6840 have only one antenna and the vehicle mount is frequently used with a single antenna. If there is only one antenna make sure that diversity is set to “No”. When using the standard start-up files the diversity is defaulted on terminal type to the expected value as implied by the above hardware antenna configurations.
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MU SLEEP MODE |
If “MU sleep mode” is selected from the main configuration menu, the above screen is displayed. The current setting of the sleep mode is shown and may be changed by using the up and down arrow keys to toggle between the two valid settings. Enter must be pressed to effect any change made.
If this switch is set ON, the radio is not powered off when an application powers down the terminal due to inactivity. This permits the terminal to be woken-up by a message being directed to the terminal. Broadcast messages will not wake-up the terminal.
If this switch is set to OFF, the radio is powered off when an application powers down the terminal due to inactivity.
The default value for this parameter is ON.
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BOOT MODE |
If “Boot Mode” is selected from the main configuration menu, the above screen is displayed. The current setting of the Boot Mode is shown and may be changed by using the up and down arrow keys to toggle between the three valid settings. Enter must be pressed to effect any change made.
If boot mode is set to “Boot”, when the terminal is being initialized, a TCP/IP BOOTP request message will be broadcast to the network. Any boot servers on the network should respond if configured to do so. The terminal will accept the first valid response that it receives. The response contains an IP address to be used by the terminal and, optionally, other network parameters. Parameters received in a BOOTP response over-ride any that may have been entered using this configurator.
If boot mode is set to “DHCP”, when the terminal is being initialized, a similar process is performed as described above for BOOT mode, except that Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol is used.
Symbol’s BOOTP program, which supports the obtaining of network parameters depending on the setting of this configuration parameter, supports the setting of the following network parameters from the BOOTP and DHCP responses:
Sub-net mask
Default router - the first address from the router list.
Terminal IP address
Additionally in DHCP, if both domain name (option 15) and domain name servers (option 6) are returned in the DHCP ACK then a RESOLV.CFG file will be generated which permits the stack to attempt to resolve network names from the domain servers offered.
If the boot mode is set to “Manual entry”, then no configuration messages are broadcast to the network and the current values of the network parameters, saved in the radio flash, are used to connect to the network.
“Manual entry” is the default setting of this parameter.
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PWR MANAGEMENT |
If “Pwr Management” is selected from the main configuration menu, the above screen is displayed. The current setting of power management is shown and may be changed by using the up and down arrow keys to toggle between the two valid settings. Enter must be pressed to effect any change made.
If power management is set to PSP, the default, the radio is powered up only when there is traffic on the network. This mode adapts to the radio activity to decide how long the radio will be powered down. Because the radio will not always be in a ready state when a message is available to be sent to it, this mode does slow response times.
If power management is set to CAM, the radio is always ready to receive. In this mode, battery life is dramatically reduced. This mode is not recommended for any terminal that runs on integral nickel cadmium, metal hydride or alkaline batteries. Vehicle mount terminals should be set to CAM mode.
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BUFFERS |
If “Buffers” is selected from the main configuration menu, the above screen is displayed. The current setting of the input buffer count is shown and may be changed by using the up and down arrow keys to toggle between the three valid settings. Enter must be pressed to effect any change made.
This parameter is the number of buffers allocated for frames from the radio. It is recommended that this parameter be left at the default value (currently 8). Two other settings are allowed, 4 or 12. Increase the count to 12 to overcome performance issues if your application can bear this use of memory resources. Reduce the count to 4 if your application has memory resource problems.
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REXMIT DELAY |
If “ReXmit Delay” is selected from the main configuration menu, the above screen is displayed. The current setting of the retransmission delay is shown and may be changed by using the up and down arrow keys to toggle between the two valid settings. Enter must be pressed to effect any change made.
This parameter is the minimum delay that the TCP/IP stack software will wait before retrying unacknowledged frames. There are two possible values “short” that equates to half a second and “long” that equates to a full second. These values are set high to allow for the radio technology. To preserve battery life, the radio is powered down as much as possible. These timeout values minimize spurious retries due to wireless responses being delayed until the terminal radio is powered up.
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RATE CONTROL |
If “Rate Control” is selected from the main configuration menu, the above screen is displayed. The current setting of the transmission rate is shown and may be changed by using the up and down arrow keys to toggle between the three valid settings. Enter must be pressed to effect any change made.
With the new radio, there is potential for either fixing the radio transfer rate at 1Mbps or at 2Mbps. There is an adaptive setting that will use 2Mbps until it experiences difficulties when it will automatically back-off to 1Mbps.
If the configurator senses that the radio is only capable of 1Mbps transmission, this parameter will display as “1Mb only” and will not permit any change.
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SCAN/RF OP |
If “Scan/RF Op” is selected from the main configuration menu, the above screen is displayed. The current setting of the Scan/RF operating mode is shown and may be changed by using the up and down arrow keys to toggle between the two valid settings. Enter must be pressed to effect any change made.
The two options are concurrent operation and “Scan stops RF”. In this second mode the radio is locked out of transmitting while the scanner is being used. This has previously been the manner in which the 300 series terminals have worked. The concurrent operating mode is new and the default. The concurrent mode should be more convenient for aggressive scanning applications where previously it was possible to lock out the radio for long enough to lose association with the AP.
, Clear, Enter