Radio Telemetry Ensures Safe Shipping

A scanning telemetry system working over 40km with 500mW transmiter power.

In 1993 Magenta Products supplied a scanning radio telemetry system to Associated British Ports' Harbour Master, Humber. The system is used to provide real-time information on tidal heights along the busy Humber estuary. Tide gauges monitor the tidal height at locations on the estuary from the sea to 75km inland along two river systems. A total of sixteen Magenta radio telemetry outstations are used to send the tidal information back to central base station on top of the Humber bridge by kind permission of the Humber Bridge Board. From here it is transmitted globally for public use throughout the area. Due to the topography of the area, some of the outstations located further inland could not obtain a direct radio path to the base station. This problem was overcome by using a secondary base station at one of the tidal monitoring points to retrieve data from the obscured outstations for onward transmission to the main base station. Using a single radio channel, the base stations use dual redundancy with automatic switchover to provide high system reliability. The system has proved extremely effective despite operating over radio paths of up to 40km with radio transmitter powers of less than 500mW. The publicly available information is used for many purposes including hydrographic surveying and to ensure the safe passage of shipping through the estuary. It is also used by the NRA and Hull University.

This system was implemented with a combination of the MP2600 series radio telemetry stations and the MP1001 radio tide gauge system.