Government regulations have mandated that public utilities provide ever
increasing monitoring and reporting of their systems. Utility departments are
learning that a good SCADA system can provide the backbone for remotely
monitoring and controlling of their freshwater, wastewater, and collection
systems.
Because utility systems are typically spread throughout a municipality, city, or
county, radio telemetry is the most reliable and cost effective means to tie
each of the remote locations back to the plant or administrative office through
the same radio channel.
A major advantage of telemetry is eliminating the need for driving across town
to check on, or change the status of equipment operating at remote locations.
Telemetry also allows the utility to monitor alarm conditions before they become
critical. The utility can monitor high-well conditions and power outages
occurring at remote sites in "real time".
Another advantage of telemetry is preventive maintenance. By utilizing the
reports and trending provided by the computer system, the utility can diagnose
pump problems long before they become failures. These reports allow the user to
compare run times of pumps from day to day.
SCADA telemetry is able to relay system status across to initiate automatic
control functions. The system can transmit status such as "pump run", "tank
level", "water pressure" or "wet well level" from one remote location to
another to activate control functions.
Fortech utilizes several communication systems to achieve interconnectivities
between local and remote sites in order to provide for a complete
solution. These systems include:
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Licensed Radio System
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Spread Spectrum Radio System
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Fiber Optic Ethernet
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10/100 Mbits CAT 5 Ethernet
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T1 line
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ISDN line