Nebraska Cooperative Installs New TWACS AMR System

Nov. 11, 2010
Over the last few months Radius US Inc. has been working with Elkhorn PPD to install a new TWACS AMR system.

Over the last few months Radius US Inc. has been working with Elkhorn PPD to install a new TWACS AMR system. Elkhorn selected Radius and its PDR221 data radios to provide the TWCAS data backhaul.

Elkhorn PPD is a rural coop electric utility in central Nebraska located in Battle Creek Nebraska. Elkhorn PPD had a long-standing relationship with Radius when it comes to data communications. It was this relationship that made the challenge to implementing a new TWACS AMR that much easier as Radius had the knowledge and experience to deal with all of Elkhorn requirement for the SCADA backhaul system.

The radio networks are instrumental in controlling hundreds of irrigation wells across the area. As part of the project the system was designed to be used with a microwave link from the office to the main repeater, effectively moving the master to the repeater site. The system was then split into two making a north and south network for each TWACS AMR SCADA system. That meant they had four master radios at the main repeater. From there the PDR 221 data radio broadcast to all the substations. The data radios used a Comprod Communications duplexers and filters to help handle any interference and reduced the need for additional antennas so each station is just run with one antenna. All four of these systems are being constantly monitored by Radius online remote network diagnostics system (RND) that analyzes temperature, RSSI and alarms.

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