RadioTracker

Revision 3.0

11May 2012


Welcome to RADIO TRACKER, itwill be installed on the computer working with the Base Station Radio Tracker. From RADIO TRACKER, you can track all your radio users on a map, as well as record everything that happens (position as well as voice) for later playback.

Installing RADIO TRACKER

RADIO TRACKER will run on any PC with Windows XP, Vista or 7(32 bits) and screen resolution of 1024x768 or better.

RADIO TRACKER software is a free program available on our web site .

The Installation procedure should start automatically when running setup.exe

Once the installation has started, simply follow the on-screen instructions. Once RADIO TRACKER is installed, you can run it by double-clicking the RADIO TRACKER shortcut on the desktop, or from the Start Menu entry that was created during installation.

Before we get into the inner workings of RADIO TRACKER, let’s first familiarize our self with the program. RADIO TRACKER displays all user data (i.e. the users that you track) on maps.

The first thing to make sure is that your base station is plugged into your computer. If the port on your computer is open, the port light will be on (shown above as a red light). If it is not, click on it to open your computer’s port.

The list displays all of your users in the first column, the unit that they are currently using in the second column, the Radio ID’s each unit is connected to in the third column (in case of digital radios only) and the amount of time between Tracking’s in the fourth column (a double quote -“- means minutes and a single quote -‘- means seconds. As you move the mouse over the users, a picture of that users icon (i.e. the picture that will be used to represent that user on the map) will be shown.

Users can be placed into different groups. By default, RADIO TRACKER shows all users in all groups, but by using the Groups drop-down list, you can filter the Users list to display only users from a specific group. You can define your own groups, and this will be explained later in the manual.

Main Screen TOOL BAR

The Tool Bar on the Main Screen has the following icons facilities (Left to right):

  • DeleteAbove all the map layers, there is a special layer called the Tracking Layer (some GIS programs also call it the “cosmetic layer”). This layer is transparent, and RADIO TRACKER uses this layer to draw GPS fixes, trails, database plots, place marks and other graphics. You can at any time delete all the graphics on the tracking layer by pressing the “Delete” button on the toolbar to delete All GPS, Alarms, trails, Geo-fencing, Waypoints, place marks, Drawings
  • Measuring toolyou can measure distances on the map by clicking on the “Measure” button on the toolbar, then click once on the map to selecting your starting point. Double-click somewhere else on the map to select your end point. This screen tells you the length of the line in kilometers, miles and nautical miles.
  • Export map will save only the map in the screen
  • Auto Centering has three options:Continue Centering will put the user always on the center (recommended only when tracking one or two users)will always center the selected users, even if they is within the screen. In other words, the selected users will always be in the center of the screen, Centering at Map borderwill center on a user only if he is outside of the screen, and only if he is selected in the users list on the main screen and No auto centeringwill never centre on anyone, even if the tracked user is outside the screen.
  • Find will find and locate a address (number, street name and city/country) only when the user is connected to Internet.
  • COMMS Will indicate when the Base Station is connected via USB port to the PC.
  • DATA will open a new window to visualize the digital data arriving to the Base station in Bytes, ASCII, HEX or Decoded (this technical tool is for maintenance purposes).
  • ID window will show the ID of the unit being tracked

and properly decoded by the software.

Clink on the left corner to open a second window shawing more information such Date, Time,Speed , altitude, GPS status (true/.False), Distamce to Base Station and Status (Alarms)

You can minimize and maximize this info window by clicking the little button on the top-right corner of this window.

By click on , the window will resume. Click on the top right small button to change colors for the background of the window.

Panning

Simply click on the map and hold down the left mouse button. Then drag the mouse to move the map. Release the left mouse button once you have moved the map to the desired position. You can also move the map around by using the scroll bars to the right and beneath the main map window. Or, if you have a mouse with a scroll-wheel, you can use this as well.

Placemarks

You can set “placemarks” on your map, which are basically “bookmarks” for areas of interest. If there is an area you would like to mark so that you can quickly go to it in the future, you simply add a placemark at that location. To open the Placemarks screen, click on the “Placemarks” button on the toolbar:

To add a new placemark, click the “Add” button, the click on the map where you would like to place the placemark. It will ask you to give it a name and an optional description. Once you do that, the placemark will be added to the list of available placemarks. To delete a placemark, simply selected from the list of placemarks and click the Delete button. If you do not wish to view the placemarks on the map, you can turn them off by clicking the “Show Placemarks” button. You can control the appearance of the placemarks by clicking the “Opt” button.

Graphics

You can draw, edit and delete graphic from the icon.

You can draw Circles(elipshes) , rectangles, poligones, lines and text on various selected width of lines, colors, Fills and transparency.

You will be able to change the Fill color and Font of the text.

To delete any graphic, press SELECT click on the graphic and then press Delete.

All graphics will be saved on the Database.

Tracking Bar

Track button

You can track the users of your radio transponder units using the section on the main screen shown below:

Three modes of polling are available|:

  1. Track Select. In this mode, the user selected will be polled making “double click” on the unit. .

  1. Track. All the units of the selectedon the selected group will be polled once.

The figure show seven groups with three selected units from selected group “Demo” for Tracking all at once one time.

  1. Auto Track. All the units of the selected on the selected group will be continue polled at selected interval of time.

In this example the group DEMO is selected for autotrack every 5 seconds. This time depends of the priority typically (30 to 120 sec).

In that window you will be able to “Add groups” and “Delete groups” change the Interval of time as well as description of each group.

Units

The first time you run RADIO TRACKER, there will be nousers or groups defined. If you did not receive RADIO TRACKER directly from the manufacturer, there will be no Radio Tracker Units defined either. If this is the case, the first thing you should do is register the Radio Tracker Units with RADIO TRACKER. To do this, connect each unit, one at a time, to the Base Station PC and click the “Register Unit” link under the “Tools” menu:

This will register each unit with RADIO TRACKER. When the unit is registered with RADIO TRACKER, RADIO TRACKER will know about this unit, and will assign it a unique ID. Each unit should and can only be registered once. However, should you format the computer or install RADIO TRACKER on a new computer, and have not backed up the database, you will need to register each unit again.

Users

To add new users click the “Users” button on the toolbar:

The following screen will appear:

You can add a new user by clicking the “Add” button ordelete a user by clicking the “Delete” button.

A few notes:

  • The “Call Sign” field is the information will be display on the map near the Icon of the user.
  • The “icon” is selected from “Fonts” or “graphics” (if the user was creating a set of graphics)
  • Normally the fonts is selected from “wedings”

Groups

Clicking on the Groups button will bring up the following screen:

You can add a new group by clicking the “Add group” by button and filling in all the fields. You can delete a group by clicking the “Delete” button. You can switch between groups by using the arrow buttons on the left of the toolbar. From left to right, these buttons take you to the first user, previous user, next user and last user.

Select the “auto track” the group intended to track automatically and “Tracking interval” with optional description comments.

Delivery

This button will help the managers of the radio tracking network to manage to delivery and return of the units.

This will open the following window where the user will select call sign (name of the user) Radio Tracker unit number, radio number, and comments.

By selecting History button, the manger will be able to see when the units were delivered and when were they returned, using comments in both cases.

Replay

Download

Radio Tracker portable and mobile units are equipped with flash memory to record all the data up to three months.

This button will open the possibility to download the storage data via Radio or via USB cable.

The advantage of downloading via air (radio) is the user does not need to bring the unit to the base station. The data will be transmitted from portable/mobile to base in burst of eight records at the each request in order to avoid the over usage of the radio communication channel.

To select the data from memory, two options may be used: Downloading per page or downloading per date/time (most common way for normal users)

Select unit to be downloaded from user select button.

Select month/date and time in the format “hh:mm” (hour/minutes) and press

The unit will respond with the closer date/time in memory.

The manager would proceed forward or reverse by using the buttons

Play Back

The button will replay the data storage on the PC at base station. The data is kept in memory for years and it will be play continuously on the selected date/time.

Use of the play back:

The “Playback Speed” slide will allow the user to increase the speed. During the play back, the software will show the positions of selected user(s) and at the same time will reproduce the audio recorded.

When reproducing at high speed, when audio was recorded, the speed will automatically reduce at normal speed for the duration of the audio recorded.

You can select Forward and Reverse and Stop.

The button for next data is to jump to times where only data was recorded.

The user may be able to select data recorded on PC using month and date and also able to filter the time using the slide “Filter time”

The users are selected by “tick” on each unit, “select all” or “deselect all”.

Geo-fencing

The button will open another window to manage confinement (assigned) and prohibit geo-fencing areas.

1.- First select the unit intended to program with geo-fence areas.

This window will show if the unit was programmed with geo-fence data before. In this case, the unit User 3 (3246) has not data programmed inside.

2.- Press “Assign Geo-fencing” button

3.- Select the type of Geo-fencing ( confinement or Prohibit)

4.- Select the format (square, circle or polygon).

5.- Draw in the figure on the map and give a name

6.- when finish drawing all geo-fencing, click on the geo-fencing to be assigned and after press “Done assigning”

7.- Proceed to Upload data via radio by pressing “ upload geo-fencing” and later press “YES” if you are sure.

8.- The base will transmit via radio channel all the data to the remote unit. When finish, the remote will respond with acknowledge signal

You can playback a log by clicking the “Replay Log” button on the toolbar:

The following window will appear on the left of the screen:

From this screen, you can select a user who’s log you want to play from the “Users” list box. Only users that have any data (loggings) are displayed. You can select more than one user if you wish. Then select a date and time from the calendar of what part of the log you wish to play back. Use the playback buttons underneath the slider to start/stop or pause the playback. The slider allows you to control the speed of the playback – leave in the centre for realtime playback, or slide to the left for slower playback or to the right for faster playback. The progress slider shows you were in the playback you are. You can move this slider to jump to any position on the playback. Beneath the progress slider you can see all the information logged by the unit. You can click the “View Data Log” button at the bottom of this window to view the Log database. Clicking this button will bring up this screen:

Here you can view all the logged data, as well as filter the data by user, unit, speed, date and time. You can also search for specific data, sort the data, and delete data.
Downloading Logged Data from a Unit

You can download logged data from a unit by clicking the “Download” button on the toolbar:

The following screen will appear:

If you are downloading over the USB port, simply plug the unit to your PC and click the “Download” button. This will download the entire contents of the memory. If there are any duplicate values, they will not be stored. If you would like to see the data in realtime as it is being downloaded, make sure the “Plot downloaded data on map in realtime” checkbox is ticked. This, however, will slow down the download a bit when downloading over the USB. If you would like to see the data as it is being downloaded (in text format), make sure the “View downloaded data in text format” checkbox is ticked. The Status section will show you the progress of the download. Once the download is complete, you can view the download in a grid by clicking the “View Download” button, or you can play back the download by clicking the “Play Download” button. If you wish to download data from a unit over the air instead of over the USB port, tick the “Over Air” checkbox. When you do this, the screen will expand to look as follows:

You must select a user or a unit to download from the first line of drop down lists. You can download the latest data by clicking the “Download Latest Data” button. Or, alternatively, you can select a data and time to download previous data. You can download the data just after, or just before, the last downloaded data by using the left and right button. You can download the last downloaded data again by clicking the < button.