Sutron worked closely with NOAA's National Ocean Service to develop the Tide Station hardware configurations* listed here.

The Main Tide Station is designed to:

• Detect a vast array of events. Sutron's Xpert Logger is a Windows device programmable to do literally anything including traditional NOS methods (sudden water level drops, etc.) and Seismic Sensors, or both at one time.
• Survive in harsh, coastal environments
• Support a wide variety of water level monitoring and weather instruments
• Provide pre-programmed support for all NOS-required tidal data processing, including:
  - 6-Minute GOES self-timed transmissions
  - 1-Hour GOES self-timed data transmissions
  - DQAP (Outlier elimination) water level averaging
  - Redundant data transmissions
  - Tsunami and storm surge data processing and transmission
• Support GOES satellite & a wide variety of other telemetry methods
• Provide built-in surge protection for all inputs
  
  Although designed for the Tidal Market, the Sutron Main Station is an ideal starting point for a wide variety of highly reliable & accurate weather stations.
  

MAIN STATION LOGGING FEATURES

• 486 class processor, 32 bits
• Expandable – I/O modules can be added as needed
• Scaleable — handles simple sites as well as complex sites.
• Battery operated — each module operates off of 10 to 15VDC power
• Low power consumption – quiescent <2mA
• Wide temperature operation — -40 to +60°C
• Multiple telemetry — Telephone, LOS Radio, INMARSAT, GOES, METEOESAT, INSAT, SCD telemetry to the site
• Flexible measuring and recording — Setup allows separate measuring schedules for data as well as individual recording intervals. Min, max, average, accumulations, event (time-tag) logging, DQAP, 10 samples/sec/chan, data compression. Separate log for notes, system events. Changes to setup do not effect logged data.
• Open design — will operate with sensors and modules manufactured by others
• Measures low cost sensors
• Web posting
• High speed data transfers - up to 115,200 BPS throughput
• Flash memory for recording data and events. (4 MB flash provided for the log application)
• Plug-n-play ease of setup — easy setup using a graphical view program.
• Automatic I/O Module Configuration - Install a new I/O module and the system automatically detects it and allows it to be configured for operation. PCMCIA Module The product supports one PCMCIA slot. The PCMCIA slot is provided for dumping data, redundant data storage, software updates, setup changes.
  

Display

The display is a 1/4 VGA LCD for viewing data in the system and also setting up a station. Units without a display can be operated through one of the RS232 ports. The display operates -10 to +60°C and in full sunlight without readability problems. Backlighting is standard.
A touchscreen is overlaid on the display to allow interaction with the Xpert using a stylus or finger.

Serial Ports

There are 5 serial ports built-into the recorder. These serial ports can be used for communications to devices such as telephone modems, LOS radio modems, Sutron satellite transmitter etc. One of the serial ports is dedicated to support SDI-12 Rev 1.3.

I/O Modules

The recorder also handles analog and digital I/O in a flexible manner using an I2C bus. This is an industry standard bus capable of running a total of 10 ft between devices. Sutron makes a number of different I2C I/O modules to best meet our customer requirements. The most
commonly used modules are our analog module and digital module. These modules have the following features:

Precision Analog Module

• Six inputs configurable as 6 single ended channels or 3 differential inputs or a combination of +5V and ±300mV input ranges
• Input gain settings of 1 and 16
• Up to four 4-20mA sensor interface
• 22 bit resolution
• Ability to make resistance measurements without additional external resistors.

• 8 digital I/O, 6 bi-directional, 2 input only
• Up to 8 general purpose sampled inputs, level sense with alarm or 32 bit counter
• Up to 4 quadrature output sensors (quadrature requires two inputs per sensor)
• Two switchable threshold RM Young wind sensor compatible inputs. 32 bit counter or frequency counter.

COMMUNICATIONS

• Cell Phones
• Packet Networks
• Hard Wire
• all other types of telemetry

Satellites:

SatLink2 - 40 Watts for Buoy Applications

For technical information contact Dr. Tom Keefer at (703)406-2800 or
your Regional Sutron Sales Manager