Spectrum 3387 Operation Manual

Weather Station
Dial-Up Modem

Operation Manual

Catalog No. 3387

Spectrum

Technologies, Inc.

CONTENTS

General Overview 3
Components 3
Specifications 3

Installation 4
Operation

Setting up a Weather Station in Specware

Contacting a Weather Station
Launching/Downloading a Weather Station

5
6
7

Modem Initialization String 8
Weather Station Bulletin 10

Warranty 11

This manual will familiarize you with the features and

operation of your new Dial-Up Modem. Please read this

manual thoroughly before using your instrument. For

customer support, or to place an order, call Spectrum

Technologies, Inc. at [phone] or [phone]

between 7:30 am and 5:30 p.m. CST, FAX at [phone],

or E-Mail at [e-mail].

Spectrum Technologies, Inc
12360 S. Industrial Dr. East

Plainfield, IL 60585

2

General Overview

The dial-up modem gives you the ability to communi­cate with your WatchDog Weather Station through a
standard telephone land line. With the dial-up modem,
you can download and relaunch the station’s data log­ger from your office computer as well as view current
conditions in real-time.

Components

The components of the dial-up modem are as follows:

1. Modem module.

2. Two 40 foot, 4-wire telephone cables.

3. A/C adaptor.

100 and 200 ft. cables (item #’s 3660-100 and 3660-

200) are available that allow you to extend the distance
between the weather station and the modem or between
the modem and the telephone wall jack.

Note: SpecWare Pro Software is required to use the
dial up modem.

Voltage Range
Current

Baud Rate

Maximum Recommended
Cable Lengths

Specifications

8 - 15 Volts DC
30 mA

1200 bps

modem to station - 100 ft.
modem to jack - 200 ft.

3

Installation

A schematic for connecting the dial-up modem to your
weather station is shown in figure 1. The WatchDog
weather stations are configured with 2 communication
ports (Computer and Aux). Use one of the 40 ft. cables
to connect the dial-up modem to the weather station
through the Aux port. The other 40 ft. cable is used to
connect the modem to a telephone wall jack. The modem
is powered via a DC power jack that is plugged into an
A/C power adaptor. The A/C adaptor plugs into the mo­dem’s DC power jack.

Plug the phone line in the port marked line,
Nothing is plugged into the port marked phone.

Note: The modem is not waterproof. If it cannot be lo­cated indoors, it should be housed in a waterproof enclo-

A/C
Power
Source

A/C Adaptor

Modem
Module

Wall
Phone
Jack

Weather
Station

40 ft telephone
cable

Figure 1. Connection diagram for the dial-up modem

4

Operation

Setting up a Weather Station in SpecWare

Before SpecWare can communicate with a weather sta­tion via the dial-up modem, the contact information for
that station must be entered into the software. To input
details about a new weather station, click the WatchDog

Manger button from the SpecWare toolbar or select
WatchDog Manger from the Logger menu. This will

bring up the WatchDog Manager screen (fig. 2).

Figure 2: WatchDog screen

Click the New Station button in the lower left corner to
create a new station or select an existing station. Click on
Properties to bring Up the WatchDog Properties Screen.
(fig. 3).

Figure 3: Remote Weather Station Properties screen

5

Operation (Cont.)

Select 2000 Series and Modem Dial to Remote Wired as
the connection type. Finally, enter the weather station
phone number exactly as it would be dialed from a tele­phone, including 1+ area code. If there is a digit required

to acquire an outside line, it should be typed in as the first
number followed by a comma (i.e. 9,555-1234). The mo­dem will pause 2 seconds after dialing the 9 before dialing
the rest of the number. The dash can be included for clar­ity but is not necessary. After clicking the “OK” button,

this station will be available in the WatchDog Manager
screen and can be read out and/or launched from your
computer.

Contacting the Weather Station

To connect to a station that has already been set up on
your computer (see previous section), Select the station
from the list of available stations in WatchDog Manager.

If you need to change any of the existing contact informa­tion, click the Properties button in the WatchDog Man-

ager screen (fig. 3). This will bring up the WatchDog
Properties screen. In this screen you can modify the

phone number and the name of the weather station.

6

Operation (Cont.)

Launching/Downloading the Weather Station

When connected via a dial-up modem, the weather sta­tion data logger is launched with the same configura­tion as when it was last downloaded. From the Watch-
Dog Manager screen (fig. 2), you can opt to download
the station’s data logger (Readout)

To modify the data logger configuration in the Launch

Options screen, click on the more button. Refer to the
SpecWare Software User’s Guide for details on

launching WatchDog data loggers.

7

Modem Initialization

String

In order for SpecWare to communicate with the
weather station via the dial-up modem, your com­puter’s modem needs to be initialized (the dial-up mo­dem is initialized prior to shipment). To adjust how
SpecWare communicates with the computer modem,
select the Preferences option in the File menu. On the
Communications tab (see fig. 4) are the Modem Dial­out options. The Com Port selected must be the one
associated with your computer modem (on many com­puters this will be Com 2). Most computers communi-

Figure 4: Communications tab of Preferences screen.

8

Modem Initialization

String (Cont.)

cate through touch-tone dialing so this option should be
selected. Within SpecWare, the default modem initiali­zation string is:

ATZ0Q0V1X4+MS=V22,0,1200,1200,1200,1200

However, if this string does not work for your modem,
contact Spectrum Technologies for technical support.
Finally, there should be some time allowed between
when a connection is established and when SpecWare
begins communicating with weather station. There­fore, the Wait after Connect field should not read 0
seconds. A wait time of 3 seconds should be sufficient.

9

Weather Station

Bulletin

The dial-up modem allows you to contact your weather
station at any time to obtain real-time weather data.
Simply click on the Get Current Conditions button in
the WatchDog Manager screen (fig. 2). Refer to the
SpecWare Software User’s Guide for details on the
Weather Monitor screen.

Note: There is a button for the Weather Monitor
screen in the SpecWare toolbar. .

Figure 5: Weather Bulletin information screen

10

Warranty

This product is warranted to be free from defects in
material or workmanship for 1 year from the date of
purchase. During the warranty period Spectrum will,
at its option, either repair or replace products that prove
to be defective. This warranty is void if the Spectrum
products have been damaged by customer error or
negligence, or if there has been an unauthorized
modification.

Returning Products to Spectrum

Before returning a failed unit, you must obtain a
Returned Goods Authorization (RGA) number from
Spectrum. You must ship the product(s), properly
packaged against further damage, back to Spectrum at
your expense. Clearly mark the RGA number on the
outside of the package. Spectrum is not responsible
for any package that is returned without a valid RGA
number or for the loss of the package by any shipping
company.

11

Spectrum

Technologies, Inc.

Spectrum Technologies, Inc.

12360 S Industrial Dr E

Plainfield, IL 60585

[phone] or [phone]

FAX: [phone]

E-Mail: [e-mail]

www.specmeters.com