Handheld computers add long-range wireless

Edited by the Engineeringtalk editorial team May 19, 2006

With its new Jett-Wave Radio option, Two Technologies now offers its most popular brands of handheld computers with the longest range wireless data communications solution in the industry.

With its new Jett-Wave Radio option, Two Technologies now offers its most popular brands of handheld computers with the longest range wireless data communications solution in the industry.

By taking advantage of the Jett-Pack peripheral connection system, the Jett-Wave Radio can be easily added to many of Two Technologies' handheld computers, including the Jett-XL and Jett-eye.

With this module, Two Technologies' handheld computers can wirelessly communicate with equipment and other handheld computers at longer ranges - up to several kilometres in line-of-sight applications and up to 900m in typical indoor/urban environments.

"With the Jett-Wave Radio option, our mobile handheld computers can be used to remotely monitor surveying instruments and other types of robotic machinery at long distances with freedom of movement", said Joan Rickards, Two Technologies, Executive Vice President of Sales and Marketing.

"The Jett-Wave Radio also makes our handhelds ideal for monitoring equipment in hostile environments such as nuclear plants, while serving as reliable long-range communications devices that will survive even the most severe environments".

Incorporating a 900MHz spread spectrum radio supplied by MaxStream, the Jett-Wave Radio supports various communication configurations, including point-to-point, point-to-multipoint and multidrop networking topologies.

With this module, Two Technologies' handheld computers can selectively communicate different sets of data to specific points with minimal configuration.

And because the Jett-Wave Radio supports 65,000 network addresses on 10 hop sequences, multiple handheld computers can be configured to operate on different channels or to communicate with each other wirelessly within the security of a single network.

"With the Jett-Wave Radio, one handheld device can be configured on a network address to securely monitor specific locations or multiple handhelds can be configured together to communicate with various remote equipment", explains Rickards.

"Incorporating government-standard 256bit AES encryption and advanced interference immunity, the Jett-Wave Radio provides secure and reliable connections".

Two Technologies chose the MaxStream radio modem for the wireless communications capabilities of the Jett-Wave Radio because of its quality, high reliability and superior receiver sensitivity.

"MaxStream radio modems achieve up to eight times the range of competing RF solutions", said Damon Darais, MaxStream Vice President of Marketing.

"They can extend the range of a handheld computer from 300 feet to up to a half-mile in business and residential environments".

The Jett-Wave Radio is just one of many options that customers can choose to customise Two Technologies handheld computers.

Using its new Jett-Pack hardware interface, Two Technologies can integrate many different peripherals including RFID, GPS and more into the Jett-Pack, which can then be used on a Pack Ready handheld computer.