Purpose of this technical note

Although the Signature VM system provides a wide range of options for setting up the Signature deployment there are cases where special features of the Signature need to be configured.

For this purpose, there is the option to run the Signature VM system with a custom deployment file.

This will allow access to all the Signature’s settings. Note, however, that the VM software system can only show and process a subset of all the possible settings. Nevertheless, the complete data will be stored in the Signature VM data file, from where it can be post-processed by the user. (Also note that it is possible to create a custom deployment file with nonsensical or out-of-bounds settings. The Signature VM software will not check the validity of a custom deployment file, but the Signature sensor itself will report back after start if settings are not valid. This may result in a pop-up error-message.)

This technical note illustrates the process of creating and altering a custom deployment file by describing how to switch on recording of the raw bottom track data (a.k.a. DF199 file format)

Custom deployment with raw bottom track

Start the measurement as usual but don’t press the start button; instead, move the mouse to hover over “deployment details” (see figure 1).

Figure 1: Deployment details

Use “Save to file” to save these deployment settings.

Open the file in an editor, e.g. notepad.

It should look similar to the following (some details may be different, depending on the instrument and settings used):

SETPLAN,MIAVG=2,AVG=1,DIAVG=0,VD=0,MV=10,SA=0,BURST=0,MIBURST=6,DIBURST=0,SV=0,FN="4250_220616T081300.AD2CP",SO=0,FREQ=100,NSTT=0

SETAVG,NC=64,CS=7,BD=2,CY="BEAM",PL=-6,AI=2,VR=4,DF=3,NPING=1,NB=4,CH=0,MUX=0,BW="BROAD",ALTI=0,BT=1,ICE=0,ALTISTART=0.5,ALTIEND=450,RAWALTI=0

SETBT,RANGE=500,VR=5,NB=4,CH=0,DF=20,PL=-15

Change “DF=20” in the last line (the one that starts with “SETBT”) to “DF=199” and save the file.

(For raw bottom track, do not change “DF=…” settings in other lines; e.g., in the example above, leave “SETAVG, …, DF=3, …” as is.)

Before starting the measurement again, go to the “Connection details”.

In the section for the Signature instrument, uncheck “Use default deployment” (see figure 2).

Then, finish the connection and start the measurement as usual. The system will then ask you to select a deployment file; select the one you saved and changed earlier.

Figure 2: Connection details