Turbo Dispatch - Technical Review

Technical Review

The following notes describe the method of automatically transferring job details from a motoring organisation (or club’s) computer into their recovery operator's computer using the Mobitex data network. Since each of the motoring organisations is likely to have its own unique computer system and working practices, it is not practical to attempt to define how automatic job transfer would be best achieved for them. Consequently only a typical recovery operator’s computer installation is defined below.

Typically, the recovery operator job logging and invoicing system is based around a personal computer. This will be connected to the Mobitex data network by a Masc. radio modem (sometimes called a Mobidem) using one of the PC's RS-232 communication ports. Job transmission will entail the motoring organisation's computer using the recovery operator's unique Mobidem number to call his computer.

Once a connection has been made the job details are transmitted in the data format defined in the Turbo Dispatch Format Manual, and the call terminated. A dedicated communications computer will usually be employed to constantly monitor the radio modem via the RS232 port. This will operate a program TD.EXE, running under Windows. Data received from the radio modem will be transferred to an incoming message queue on the other computer, for subsequent automatic processing by the main job taking software (a maximum of 5 seconds delay). An audible sound will also be generated by the communications computer.

Immediately the job details are received by the recovery operator’s communications computer, it will transmit an automatic acknowledgement to the origin of the job message and place the job details in a queue awaiting manual acceptance by the recovery operator’s controller. Job Dispatch will be completed by the recovery operator’s controller, either by accepting, or rejecting the job and the corresponding transaction being dispatched to the motoring organisation.

The Turbo Dispatch application was initially restricted to employing the MASC protocol of the Transcomm Mobile Data Network. This protocol was adopted because it eliminates the complexity of retries which would result from employing a session based protocol on the radio modems e.g. Hayes or X.28.