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| Intuicom 1200DL |
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Intuicom 1200DL ExperienceThe part numbers for this product are:
On June 13, 2004 I setup a base on a small hill in the eastern part of Centennial, a suburb of Denver, to do some casual testing of the new Intuicom 1200DL. This is a 1 watt spread-spectrum radio with excellent performance. No licensing required. The radio has been put into the GFU housing so it connects directly to the receiver. The setup is identical for the base and rover. The radio antenna can be directly connected to the GFU housing, or you can use a cable to raise the antenna. I used a short cable and a 15 cm arm (Part 667219) to raise the antenna to same height as the GPS antenna as seen below. Also notice that the only batteries I used were the two internal receiver lithium-ion batteries. These are very low power radios, and during a test earlier in Wyoming, it was reported that the internal receiver batteries at the base lasted 8.5 hours with 40% remaining in one of the batteries. To be on the safe side, I would probably use a GEB171 battery if I was planning on working all day.
The views from the base are shown below:
North
East
West
South As you can see the base was fairly well situated. As with all radios, the higher the antenna, the farther the range. I just elevated the whole setup. Don't fight mother nature. This was not a test of accuracy, just an informal test of radio performance, and no control monuments were occupied. The base was established with a HERE position. And was protected by the rugged and dependable base crew, Ken Perry and his daughter Kirsten, seen below.
And below we have yours truly, the one-man mobile crew. Notice the fancy antenna rigs. The radio antenna was held by the door and the GPS antenna was held by the window.
I went 9 kilometers north and 20 kilometers east. There were some spots where I lost the radio. Typically these were in low spots. I didn't spend any time checking to see if I could move a little and pick up the signal, I just kept driving. If I was doing a survey in any of these areas, I could have easily gotten reception by using a single repeater. On the drive east along Quincy avenue, I would lose signal when I dropped down into ravines, and regain the signal upon getting back up. Looking at the data, in some of the areas on the Quincy Ave. section, I had reception one-way, but not the other. Here again, a single repeater would have solved any issues. In short, I find the performance of these radios to be superior for a 1 watt spread-spectrum radio. I could have gone farther than 20 kilometers, but I ran out of interest. Here is a map with the route traced in red: Unfortunately I was not able to show the eastern end of the test and see street detail at the same time, but following the map is a full display of the project from LGO.
Below is a screen dump from the LGO project showing areas in the top area where I lost radio. The section along Tower Rd. was in a low area, and the section along E470 was also low with raised berms along the highway.
Below is the bottom section of the project which tended to be higher, and as a result the radio was cleaner.
The ride along East Quincy Ave was as I expected. Radio when I was up on the flats, no radio when I was down in the valleys. Below is a view back to the west from my farthest east point.
And here is the display screen at this point:
SUMMARY Very nice radios. Easy to set up and use. No large batteries required. If you are just doing site work, a base and rover should be fine, but if you plan on doing long distance RTK, I would recommend using a third radio for a repeater. If you have multiple rovers, they can be programmed as rover/repeaters assisting each other. In large areas, you can set up a network of repeater sites allowing work with a rover anywhere within the coverage area. This is a very flexible radio solution that allows the bi-directional transfer of information between receivers, and between receivers and a control station. If you are looking for a new RTK communications solution, check this one out. Ellis R. Veatch II, PS |
