Polling the beacon receiver by means of HTTP GET requests via the network interfaces is limited in speed. The beacon receiver may be polled about three times a second this way. For step track application this may be too slow.
To overcome this limitation, the beacon receiver provides the capability to distribute the measured level or c/n value as UDP datagrams. It does this in real time as the values are sampled by the beacon receiver (8 samples per second). The sat-nms ACU/ODM uses this feature.
Protocol Definition
The UDP datagrams are sent to a configurable IP address at port 2000. Each datagram carries the actual measurement value as a zero-terminated string. Hence, if the beacon receiver is configured to make plain level measurements, the UDP datagrams contain something like '-65.33' which represents the measured level in dBm. In C/No mode, the C/No values is contained in the UDP datagram: e.g. '12.33' for this dBHz value.
UDP datagrams are sent each time the beacon receiver measures the input level. During frequency track or while it performs a noise reference measurement, the beacon receiver pauses sending UDP datagrams.
Configuration
To use the UDP feature, enter a valid IP address to the "UDP destination address" field at the Setup page or set this parameter from remore with the ' udpa ' remote parameter. If you want to use the beacon receiver together with a sat-nms ACU/ODM, set this parameter to the IP address of the ACU.
The beacon receiver starts to send UDP datagrams as soon as it receives a valid destination IP address. To stop the UDP distribution, set the destination address value to 'none'.
Beside definite IP addresses, the beacon receiver also accepts UDP broadcast masks for the "UDP destination address" parameter. In this case, the beacon receiver sends the datagrams as UPD broadcasts, multiple clients may receive the measurement value in this mode. When usinf UDP broadcasts you should consider the following: