Bluetooth Communiciations

Bluetooth doesn't have the range that the freewave radios have.

Air Cable Bluetooth

We have two air cable bluetooth radios that I have been using for the Rio Grande ADCP setup. I also have two external 8.5 dbi omni-directional antennaes to go with them. I have been using them on the kayak to send back GPS and ADCP data to a laptop w/ bluetooth on shore. They are quite fidgety and lose connection often. I am not a big fan of the one labeled "GPS". Connection is lost frequently. We might need to play around with this more often.

Sena Parani SD1000 Bluetooth

I have one parani sd1000 bluetooth radio that seems promising. I have a 5 dbi dipole antennae for use with this. I was going to use this as a spare, or to boost the laptop signal (instead of using the laptop class 2 bluetooth w/ only a 30 ft range). This one seems to have good communication when attached to the laptop for use with the streampro.

The Parani has "hardware flow control" setting. This should probably be turned on.

Sena UD100 Bluetooth

This is a USB bluetooth. We can use this for laptops that don't have internal bluetooths (like the big toughbook) or we can use it as a boost for the mini tough book. It has a 5 dbi antennae. I tested this one with the streampro. The range was 150 meters at a minimum from the laptop to the streampro, I think it goes further but I didn't test it. Note that this needs to be secured into a USB port and can be bumped easily in the field, losing the connection. The mini-toughbook USB ports are not so great for plugging in this bluetooth radio, but it seems to work really good. If we can get it better secured in the mini-toughbook, or use a USB extension cable it may work better. I am sure it will work fine in regular laptops.

Mini Toughbook Internal Bluetooth

The mini toughbook has an internal bluetooth that only works up to 30 ft w/ the streampro. With the Rio Grande ADCP and the GPS bluetooth radios, we can add a better antennae to those radios and extend the range to over 150 m. I suggest not using the internal mini toughbook internal bluetooth, but instead use the Parani / Sena USB bluetooth external radio.

General Bluetooth notes

• Baud rates should be set to what the instrument is set up at. For example, the ADCPs should have a baud rate of 115.2k and so the radio should also be set to that baud rate.
• The laptop bluetooth software will assign a COM port to data coming in via bluetooth. For example, on the mini-toughbook, the streampro adcp com port is COM40, the rio grande adcp is COM42, and the GPS is COM43. This probably won't be the same for all laptops, you may have to play around with it.
• If you use the Parani in the laptop serial port to communicate with the Streampro or toughbook (to increase the range, instead of using the internal bluetooth) data should come in through COM1.