The core technology that drives the system is known as RFDC (Radio Frequency Data Communication). A miniaturized radio transmitter,
powered by a replaceable lithium battery, is placed inside a disposable fabric patch and glued onto the tailhead of the cow.
When a cow or heifer is mounted, a radio signal containing data about that particular mount is sent to a radio receiver that has been placed in a central location.
The reception distance is generally 1/4 mile with greater distances possible in good line of sight areas and/or increased receiver height. A repeater (signal booster) is available for those operations that may require expanded transmission distance.
From the receiver, the data is sent by standard telephone wire to a buffer
(an electronic mailbox) and stores all incoming information until accessed.
Raw data of each mount is transmitted to the buffer and is formatted for printing.
Information includes the cow’s transmitter ID, the date and time of the mount and the duration of the mount.
Software inside the buffer takes this raw data and processes it into three lists.
The lists are accessed by pushing one of two buttons on the front of the buffer.
They are then printed out on a small thermal printer attached to the buffer. Pushing the first button
prints these lists:
- Standing heat list - a user defined set of criteria determine when a cow qualifies for this list. The default criteria is 3 mounts in 4 hours with each mount having a 2-second or greater duration. The list displays which cows are in heat, total number of mounts, the onset of heat and the best time to breed.
- Suspect heat list – identifies those cows that do not qualify for standing heat yet are being mounted to some degree--designed to catch "silent heats" or those cows that are cycling normally but are only mounted once or twice and most likely during the middle of the night.
Pushing the second button provides a list concerning the working status of all transmitters. All transmitters send a supervisory signal every hour. If a certain transmitter is not checking in, the system will alert you to that problem transmitter.
