Managing all DTE/DCE hardware using Serial to Ethernet Connector

One of our users Steven Bradshaw, Vice President of CVARS (Canada), talks about the advantages of using Serial to Ethernet Connector for their Ecom Trailer.

The Cowichan Valley Amateur Radio Society or CVARS (Canada) represents the large amateur radio community from Ladysmith to the Malahat. The community supports its members and helps educate new members. CVARS owns and maintains a network of radio repeaters (independent as well as connection to the Island Trunk System (ITS)) as a part of the commitment to the group of radio amateurs. The society has designed and equipped an Ecom Trailer. Also emergency radio communications kits are distributed by the society members.

The Ecom Trailer offers both Voice and Digital (data) communication. The first type is not really a challenge with installation and management, whereas digital data communication can be challenging to install, setup and use. One of the challenges is that there are many types of modems - Terminal Node Controllers (TNC).

Usually the connections among computers, TNCs and radios are managed through patch bay, where all the I/O are presented to operator. First off this can be overwhelming for operator and then it can be quite hard to lay out the patch bay so that there is a visual sense in the interconnections. On the other side, we are using both USB and DB interfaces and we need to provide some data sources, like GPS NMEA 0183 feed, to more than one client. The serial port over IP software allows us a lot of flexibility in setting up and working with all the DTE/DCE hardware visually and efficiently.

Serial over IP software - Electronic Team solution helped us!

We tried other solutions before we finally found Electronic Team serial over IP software. Previous apps failed to deliver all packages which is crucial for us. However once we finally settled on Serial to Ethernet Connector we were very happy with its ability to send serial data over TCP IP intact.

Right now Serial to Ethernet Connector is used to make all DCE (GPS, TNC, etc.) accessible to all the DTE (computers) running client software that need to use DCE.

Serial to IP software saves us tons of time - time we would've spent building the patch bay, time we would've spent doing drawing and writing documentation, etc.