The 2003 forest fire season on the West Coast of Canada was one of the worst in a century. Extremely dry conditions all summer turned the forests of central British Columbia into a tinderbox. Lightning and strong winds brought new wildfires to the Kamloops Fire Centre area, adding to the workload of crews already battling blazes. The Okanagan Mountain Park Fire began on August 16 from two lightning strikes and had grown from an estimated 2,200 hectares in size on August 19 to 13,000 hectares by August 21, 2003. In total 287 fires burned in southeast British Columbia last summer.

Although structure protection and the safety of crews remained a top priority for firefighters, as of August 24, the fire had destroyed an estimated $100 million in real estate including 244 homes in Kelowna. 12 historic wooden trestles of the Kettle Valley Railway trail in the Myra Canyon were destroyed, but fire crews managed to save four others. Also lost was the Telus Mobility cellular site reducing service to clients in Summerland and Peachland.

When last year’s forest fires destroyed the paging station that provides service to the Okanagan area, TELUS Mobility needed to act quickly to rectify the situation. The company enacted temporary measures to provide paging service where possible, and immediately set plans in motion to erect a replacement station to restore full paging service to the area. While the Mountain cooled down from the fires, TELUS Mobility began to order the necessary equipment to get the site started.

A key component required to operate the replacement aging station was an RF power monitor panel for a UHF radio. To provide this piece of equipment, TELUS Mobility contacted Daniels Electronics in Victoria, BC.

The RF power monitor panel is used in extremely critical applications and is not a stocked item, so it had to be built as a rush order. All parts were in stock, work orders were created and the manufacturing department was able to get the RF power monitor out the door by August 26th.

Daniels Electronics built this custom part and supplied it to TELUS Mobility within a week. This quick delivery allowed TELUS Mobility to test and calibrate the equipment before it was installed into the replacement site. “We are very happy with the level of service that was provided by Daniels Electronics,” said Neil Cusati, TELUS Mobility’s Vice President, British Columbia. “Their quick response enabled us to restore full paging service to the Okanagan area in a timely and seamless manner.”

Expocomm 2004 Booth # 111
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
May 4 & 5, 2004
http://www.expocomm.com/northamerica/

Technet International 2004 Booth 745
Washington D.C.
May 11-13, 2004
Booth # 745
www.technet2004.org

UTC - Expo 2004 Booth #1011
Nashville, TN
May 16-18, 2004
http://www.utctelecom2004.utc.org/

AASHTO
Baton Rouge Louisiana
June 13-17, 2004
http://www.transportation.org/aashto/calendar.nsf

APCO International Booth 1914
Montreal, QC
August 8-12, 2004
http://www.apcointl.org/conferences/

Daniels Electronics Ltd is pleased to welcome Gerry Wight and Jennifer Verge to our Marketing department.

Gerry joined Daniels in February as the Director of Marketing to lead the new marketing initiatives including: web site enhancements, marketing collateral, tradeshows, advertising and the resumption of this newsletter. Gerry will also be responsible for new market development and managing the future evolution of the Daniels product line to ensure continued adherence to the P25 standards as well as meeting the desired enhancements requested by our customers. Gerry brings a wealth of experience to Daniels from his 20+ years in the high technology and radio industry as well as from his electrical engineering background.

Jennifer Verge recently joined the marketing group in the role of Marketing Assistant to administer the various marketing programs being put in place and to act as a point of contact for all marketing communications. Jennifer has been working in the high technology industry for the past 7 years in a variety of roles including project manager for a web design company and as a sales and marketing assistant. Jennifer is currently pursuing a Public Relations certificate at the University of Victoria to supplement her marketing diploma. Gerry and Jennifer will supplement the extensive experience of Sue Winter and Mark Waldie.

Sue Winter has been with Daniels for the past ten years. Sue began her career at Daniels in the manufacturing department and then progressed to the logistics department. Sue’s extensive knowledge of the product and the internal processes enables her to manage all product forecasting and lead time scheduling.

Mark Waldie has worked at Daniels since 1998. During that time, he has helped create promotional materials for the company including the catalog, website and literature sheets. Mark has worked on various research projects including new product development and pricing. Mark established and documented the procedures for sales forecasting and order processing and is currently involved in the implementation of a new Enterprise Resource Planning and Customer Relationship Management System.

The Daniels Electronics SITE/MC gives agencies with mission critical communication systems the ability to monitor the status of their remote radios, control functionality and diagnose problems without expensive helicopter trips to the site. Therefore, in these days of stretched budgets, the Daniels SITE/MC provides a way for agencies to have more reliable communications and lower costs. The SITE/MC is a telemetry device for site monitoring, alarming and remote control.

The SITE/MC monitors inputs from up to 8 analog and 8 digital sensors and converts changes in input signals into data capable of being transmitted via radio back to an office where the data can be logged and analyzed on a computer using Daniels TASC siteView software. Commands may also be sent back to the SITE/MC to control up to 8 outputs.

Use to monitor: (examples)

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Outside and inside temperatures

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High VSWR alarms

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AC power fail alarms

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Transmitter power

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Solar panel, battery and regulated voltages

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Door alarms

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Use to control: (examples)

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Redundant system enable

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Light activation

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Generator start

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Directional antenna control

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http://www.danelec.com/RemoteSiteCommand.htm

Daniels Electronics has been awarded a contract (#4028779) with the State of Tennessee to provide Low Band Base Stations and Repeaters to all departments within the State. The State is using Daniels Electronics radio infrastructure equipment in the under utilized VHF Low band spectrum of 30-50 MHz for State Highway patrol applications.

The low frequencies offer the benefit of minimal interference since it is a limited use block of spectrum and benefits from excellent propagation characteristics ensuring coverage over large areas. The contract allows this equipment to be ordered by other state departments that may benefit from similar applications. Daniels Electronics was selected in a competitive bid process based on the company’s reputation for reliable and robust products that will meet the needs of the State Highway patrol.

We are often asked about Synthesizer tuning and if there is a need to adjust the VCO voltage (TP4) for a given change in frequency and what should the TP4 voltage be?

Synthesizers for the various models and frequency bands of transmitters and receivers may require different adjustments to ensure they stay in lock once the equipment is placed in operation at locations that may not have a controlled room temperature. Typically the adjustments are only required when the transmitter or receiver operating frequency is changed more than a specified amount.

The synthesizer itself is made up of a VCO that will oscillate at a given RF frequency. The VCO must have a specific voltage applied to it in order to oscillate at the proper frequency, and this voltage is supplied by a synthesizer chip. The VCO generates the RF frequency, which is fed back into the synthesizer chip, which then compares this frequency against the frequency it is programmed to generate. The synthesizer chip compares frequencies by using a known reference, in our case it is a 9.6 MHz or 10.0 MHz high stability TCXO reference. The synthesizer will then adjust the voltage it is generating into the VCO in order to maintain the proper RF frequency (hence the Phase Locked Loop or PLL). When the frequency change is too great the synthesizer chip may not be capable of generating a high enough (or low enough) voltage to swing the VCO to that new frequency. The VCO then needs to be “tweaked” to allow the synthesizer to change frequency. “Tweaking” is adjusting a variable capacitor inside of the VCO in order to change its characteristics enough to allow the synthesizer chip to generate the proper voltage to lock the PLL. Other factors such as temperature also affect these adjustments.

Repeater equipment typically requires much better technical specifications and a wider operating temperature range than subscriber radio equipment (hand-held and mobile radios). This can lead to tighter tolerances of the tuning required for the repeater equipment, especially in the synthesizer.

Complete tuning information for your equipment is located within your manual. Alternatively, have a look at the Technical Notes section of the Daniels Electronics Web site (http://www.danelec.com/TechnicalNotes.htm). These notes have concise information on the Transmitter or Receiver you’re working on and give you tuning instructions in simple one to two page documents.

Greetings,


Daniels is an exciting place to be right now. A lot is happening and through this newsletter I am pleased to have a means of keeping you updated on a quarterly basis with our activities, new product introductions and applications that will allow you to maximize the benefit our equipment and service offer you.

Our Marketing department has been expanded and as a result we have additional resources to communicate our activities with you such as the new Site MC which gives agencies with mission critical communication systems the ability to monitor the status of their remote radios, control functionality and diagnose problems. The expanded marketing department will also be focusing on the future product direction to ensure our products continue to evolve with the P25 standards and also evolve to meet your requirements.

Over the coming months we will be redoing our website to provide a more comprehensive and navigable means of accessing information on Daniels products and applications. We also look forward to seeing you at the upcoming tradeshows where we will be able to show you our new products including the above Site MC and several other new products that we will be releasing at the shows and will be detailed in the next newsletter in July.



Thank you for your time,

Robert Small, VP and COO