Duane Moloney works with an 825C sounder at his desk in the Ross Labs manufacturing facility in Edmonds, Washington.
#HYPACK SWEEP SERIAL#
Previously, the only data sent to Hypack were the digitized depths for both frequencies in a custom NMEA type sentence, via a serial port interface. The 825C is also capable of sending the standard NMEA sentences $SDDBT and $SDDPT, Moloney explained. This functionality still exists in the updated software, and the user can choose to send data either by echogram or by the serial port sentence.
#HYPACK SWEEP SOFTWARE#
“We installed the new software on the Corps units in November of last year. Every new 825C Ross has sold since the first of the year has the new software and Ethernet connection installed,” said Moloney, adding that Ross is in the process of upgrading an existing 825C for a client by adding the Ethernet port and installing the software.
#HYPACK SWEEP DRIVERS#
Hypack programmers created the drivers in the Survey and Single Beam editing programs that interface with the 825C sounder. “We added the feature at the request of the Panama City, Florida Corps via Joe Burnett of Hypack,” Moloney said.
#HYPACK SWEEP UPGRADE#
“We can upgrade some of the newer 825Cs by adding an Ethernet port and installing the updated software,” Moloney said. This indicates that the blanking depth should be lowered.
The 825C will display asterisks (***.*) if the digitizing algorithm calculates a depth that is at the blanking depth. The blanking depth, along with the bottom following gate, can be used to hide aeration or fish in the water column. This prevents the system from digitizing on its own transmit pulse, something that can typically happen on the long transmit pulse from some 28 kHz transducers. The blanking depth is the depth above which the digitizing subsystem cannot look for an echo. The echogram data is dependent on the depth range the 825C is set in. The deeper the range the more data is sent to represent the entire water column. The sounder also sends a separate echogram for each of the frequencies, so in a dual frequency set there is twice as much data sent over the Ethernet connection. In addition to the actual echogram, other information is sent to Hypack that the serial connection does not provide, including UTC time tag, draft, speed of sound and blanking depth. The 825C echogram link transmits about 1.5kByes per ping of data for each frequency at a typical depth range of 50 feet. The output over the serial link is about 80 bytes per ping. This model previously had only a serial output and transmitted only the frequency of both channels and the digitized depth of each in both feet and meters to Hypack, Moloney explained. The echogram feature requires that one GPS unit be interfaced to both the 825C and to Hypack, ensuring that the echogram is time tagged with the same time source used by Hypack.Īdding this feature required the addition of an Ethernet port to the 825C to allow the large amount of echogram data to be transmitted. “The echogram is then accessed in Hypack Single Beam editor, where it is graphically overlaid on the raw sounding data. This gives the user additional characteristics of the soundings that will aid in editing them. Displaying the echogram in real-time allows the surveyor to better monitor the data coming into Hypack Survey,” he said. “This feature allows the transfer of the echogram data to Hypack Survey in real-time so it can be displayed, time-synced and stored along with the other raw data collected during the survey,” said Duane Moloney, software manager at Ross Labs.Ī dedicated computer on-board houses the Hypack program. Ross Labs, LLC has upgraded its 825C single beam sounder to include Ethernet transmission of echograms - digitized analog data - to the HYPACK Single Beam Editor program.