ArWest Annouces Narrow Band Radio Modems

ArWest (CA, USA) has announced the launch of its AlphaWave (AW) range of narrow-band radio modems and associated management software AWare. These high-performance radio modems are designed for the Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition (SCADA) market where robustness and reliability are paramount. The AW400 has been approved by the relevant statutory bodies FCC and CE for operation within their geographic regions.

The ArWest radio modem provides a high-speed Point-to-Point and Point-to-Multipoint wireless data transfer at up to 38.4 kbps. AWare software supports user selectable modulation techniques (DBPSK, DQPSK, 8DPSK, or 16QAM), which allows the user to achieve the highest data speed for a given range (up to 50 miles). It also includes a selectable forward error correction, which improves the functioning of the radio modem under interference, multipath and other intense environmental conditions. The unmatched features of ArWest include data scrambling, frequency hopping, user selectable transmit output power level, low power consumption sleep modes, auto-scanning for base and plug-and-play installation for remote terminals.

The AW product provides two separate Application Data and Maintenance RS-232 serial ports. Without changing the hardware, the radio parameter settings can be modified through the serial port from a PC.

Built-in software tools provide wireless link testing, testing of unit status, error statistics monitoring and all unit settings can be changed over the air. The firmware of the AW radio modem resides in flash memory. Updating of the radio modem programs is entirely software-based and the flash memory is re-programmable through an RS-232 interface or over the air.