How to Configure a TAP Carrier Using a Modem Transcript for Video:
Welcome to the video tutorial on how to configure PageGate to use modem-based TAP. In this tutorial, we’ll be going over how to configure PageGate to use a modem with connected phone line to deliver messages with the TAP protocol.
Before we begin, virtual machines are becoming more and more ubiquitous. Unfortunately, virtual machines can’t typically interact with physical hardware, like modems. There are, however, serial and COM port virtualizers that can provide virtual machines access to physical hardware. So, if you’re running PageGate in a virtual environment, it’s still entirely possible to use a modem to communicate with a TAP terminal.
To communicate with a TAP terminal, you’ll need three things.
- The COM port assigned to the modem
- The phone number of the TAP terminal
- The Baud Rate, Data Bits, Parity and Stop Bits required by the terminal
To determine the COM port of the modem, you can go in to the Phone and Modem section of the Control Panel in Windows, then go under the Modems tab to determine that port.
Once you have the relevant information, here’s how to configure PageGate.
First, open the PageGate Admin.
Next, expand the Connectors section.
Each connector in the program can be configured to use a modem. If you’re using multiple connectors, you can select any of your available connectors to tie the modem to. Also, if you’re using multiple connectors, you can use multiple modems.
So, expand the connector you want to tie the modem to and go to the Settings sub-section.
Set the “Serial Port” field to match the COM port of the modem.
Click Apply.
Now that we’ve told PageGate how to talk to the modem, we can add the carrier. Right click on Carriers and select ‘Add’.
Give the carrier a name.
Set the Protocol to: TAP
Set the ‘Phone Number’ field to the phone number of the TAP terminal you need to communicate with.
Set the Baud Rate, Data Bits, Parity and Stop bits to match the receiving TAP terminal’s requirements. The industry standard for TAP is 1200 baud, even parity, 7 data bits and 1 stop bit.
Leave the ‘Init String’ at auto. This tells PageGate to automatically determine the best initialization string to use with your modem based on the specified communication parameters. If you’re already familiar with your modem’s AT command set, you can click inside the field and enter a manually constructed initialization string as well.
The ‘Max Chars’ field determines the maximum number of characters that can be sent in a single message. For SMS, set this to 160. For pagers, set this to 240.
When finished, click Apply.
Now all that remains is adding a recipient that uses the new carrier. To do that, right click on the Recipients section and select ‘Add’.
Give the recipient a name.
Set the carrier to your modem based TAP carrier.
In the ID/PIN field, enter the pager number or 10 digit cell phone number.
You’ll notice that there’s a second Max Characters field here in the recipient as well. The carrier max characters value determines the number of characters that can be delivered in a single message and the recipient max characters value determines the number of characters you want to send to this person. So, if the recipient value is higher than the carrier value, the program will break up long messages in to multiple messages based on the carrier’s value.
For example, let’s say we’re sending pages and that your carrier Max Chars value is 240. Let’s then also say that we’ve set the recipient value to 480. If we send a 300 character message, PageGate will break that up in to one 240 character message and one 60 character message. If we send a 500 character message, everything after the 480th character will be lost.
When finished, click Apply.
This concludes the video tutorial on how to configure PageGate to use a modem to deliver the TAP protocol.
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