Issue 18, December 2011

VEMCO Offers Electronic Delivery of Tag Meta Data

VEMCO is now providing transmitter data in electronic format to help ease data processing tasks for customers. When an order is placed, an Excel spreadsheet that has been designed to be easily read into a data base application is automatically generated and emailed to the customer once the order has shipped.

The spreadsheet contains a summary of the transmitter specifications for that particular order including serial numbers, tag IDs, code spaces, delays, sensor data, etc. There is a single row entry for every tag ID from the order in the Excel spreadsheet. So for sensor transmitters with multiple IDs, there will be multiple entries.

The format is arranged such that as new sensor options or other tag parameters are added in the future, they can be appended to each row in the file. Empty fields are not applicable to the particular tag type. Developed in consultation with several large acoustic telemetry groups globally, the new format allows researchers to share data across larger networks (i.e. OTN, AATAMS, etc.) in a much less error prone manner.

All orders shipped will also include the usual paper copy of tag specifications that is designed to be human readable.