Connecting the SyQwest Bathy 500 via Ethernet

The SyQwest Bathy 500 can be used with Eye4Software Hydromagic Survey. In order to connect it, first some configuration settings have to be changed in the control software of the echo sounder itself.

Connecting the sounder

First you have to connect the sounder via an UTP Ethernet cable and change the setting for the network adapter as explained in section 2.9 of your Bathy 500 PDF manual, which can be downloaded from the SyQwest website.

Modifying the sounder's configuration

To access the I/O configuration, please start the Bathy 500 host software from either the start menu or your desktop. When the application has been loaded, select the “Configure Data Logger…” item from the “Edit” menu in the menu bar.

Configure data logger

A dialog box called “Configure Data Logger…” will be opened, and you must check the ‘Enable’ box and change the serial port to ‘UDP’. Next select the ‘NMEA Depth Out’ protocol to ‘PMC’, as this is the only NMEA0183 sentence supporting dual frequency sounders.

When done, click “Apply” followed by “OK” to apply these settings.

Start the echo sounder

You will return to the main screen of the host application. Do not close this application, but start the recording of pings by clicking the following button:

Loading the Hydromagic plugin

Now the sounder is configured and sending data, we can launch the Hydromagic Survey software and configure the echo sounder by loading a plugin. To do so, start the software and select “Preferences…” from the “Options” menu in the menu bar.

From the dialog that appears, select the “Devices” tab and click the “Add…” button to select the plugin from the list that appears next:

Configuring the plugin

The configuration dialog for the plugin now appears. Make sure you set the ‘connection type’ to ‘TCP/IP’, the ‘socket type’ to ‘UDP’ and the `Host Port` to `4544`.

The protocol should match with the one we selected in the SyQwest configuration, which is in this case ‘PMC’.

The settings should now look like the ones in the screenshot below:

Now click “OK” to store these settings and start the plugin. When everything is connected and configured as it should, there should be a green check in front of the plugin name. When a transducer is connected, and in the water, it should also display depth in the data view window.