Published in the August 2006 American Longwall Magazine

Wholesale Mine Supply offers leaky feeder systems, Smart Com Ethernet and Smart Tag systems, which according to Wholesale president Bill Hensler provides US mines with a unique line of products.

Hensler has worked heavily with Varis engineering manager Anita Masuskapoe to develop its leaky feeder system, which allows personnel at the surface to “see exactly what's going on everywhere with every amplifier and every voltage level,” Hensler said.

The leaky feeder can also be used as an Ethernet cable, allowing for the advantage of comprehensive communication and monitoring and ability to have a “highway” of information.

Hensler and Masuskapoe said that because the technology is designed especially for underground use, the issues in implementation and development have been non-existent.

Another of the company's R&D developments now taking center stage is its Smart Tag location and resource tracking software, which can also be interfaced with the information highway of a mine. According to Hensler, each tag is equipped with four antennas to check multiple directions with an approximate 100-foot range, especially important at crossroads and in areas where multiple workers and machines are located.

“The key advantages of Smart Com is that it runs over existing infrastructure, as opposed to having to install the fiber all the way underground to get a network connection,” Masuskapoe said, adding that Smart Com and Smart Tag are not mutually exclusive and that their specifications for installation depend on the operation and its current infrastructure.

One of the latest mines to install the Smart Tag Resource Tracking system was Pinnoak’s Oak Grove mine in Adger, Alabama. The system will initially track 10 vehicles using four Smart Tag readers.

Smart Tag can detect 50 tags traveling underground at 35mph and each reader can support up to four antennas to minimize the number of readers required. The system can be easily expanded to track additional vehicles or personnel.

Two readers are hooked up to the mine’s fiber network and the other two communicate using TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol) over Varis’ Smart Com Leaky Feeder system using off-the-shelf cable modem technology at speeds of up to 54 megabits per second. In addition to providing the high-speed networking, Smart Com provides guaranteed, contiguous wireless two-way voice coverage for the underground workings.

With the capacity for gas monitoring, cameras, or any other Ethernet-compatible device in addition to communication, the developments Varis and Wholesale Mine Supply have collaborated on to bring to the industry are ones which the companies said have not been previously available and which they hope will bring mine communications to the next level.