Building a Gateway

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cuemasterfl

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I'm not sure where this belongs so feel free to move it if necessary. See pic.



The Collector will be mounted on a telephone pole, in a weather proof box, and it will wirelessly collect data from radios that are broadcasting their information from a range of up to a couple of miles or so. It will be powered by a battery, and have solar power capabilities. It needs to be a very low power system, so I'm not sure if we can use a Windows PC or if we have to use something else. Windows would be ideal though. It will not be connected to the internet by means of an ethernet cable.

The PC (as in pic) would be in another location, and basically the PC would contact the Collector at pre-determined times and retrieve the data stored within.

Do I have to use wireless modems here? I really know nothing about this kind of communication. If you were building something like this, how would you approach it.

Thanks in advance for any kind of advice you can offer.
 
Not really an expert on these things, but off the top of my head, I'd say we'd need to know how far the PC is from the collector to give you further assistance.
 
So the PC and Collector will be communicating via internet, and not a local network? In that case, which modems are you referring to when you ask if they need to be wireless?

If you are referring to how the two computers would connect to the internet, for the collector, you can use a wireless modem if there is an accessible wireless network nearby. Otherwise, you'd have to probably use a 4g network card, from Verizon or wherever.

As for the second PC, that can connect however you want it to as long as it has internet access to communicate at intervals.
 
Not via a local network. To be honest, I don't care how they connect. Whatever will work, but I do know there will not be an ethernet cable plugged in. The collector may not be a "regular PC". It depends on it I can find something that's low power. Maybe a Windows tablet?

And on the Collector side, it would have to be something that is plugged into a serial port, not USB. The boards for it have already been made. Actually, they were used on another project, but it was deemed they're ok for this.

The main PC, will be sitting at the office, ready to connect to the Collector at a set time, and take whatever data is available (by whatever means necessary).
 
I would build the collector on an embedded system with a mini pcie slot and use your preferred cell carrier for service in an enclosure like this. I would run a low power ARM system with linux over anything x86/windows for something like this.
 
I appreciate the input. This whole project is still in the R & D stages, so all of the advice given thus far will be considered.
 
I think the easiest thing would be to use a 3G modem for the collector station, but I doubt you could connect any using a serial connector. Since your using a telephone pole perhaps you could use a serial 56K modem and have it direct dial the base pc if the files aren't too large.
 
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