Patent ID: 7599703

Claim:
A wireless communication system, comprising: at least one base unit and a plurality of handheld response units communicating with said at least one base unit over at least one wireless communication link, said at least one base unit comprising a base processor and at least one base transceiver, said plurality of handheld response units comprising a plurality of response processors and a plurality of response transceivers, each of said response processors and response transceivers at one of said response units, said at least one wireless communication link comprising said at least one base transceiver and said plurality of response transceivers; wherein said base processor is programmed to control said at least one base transceiver to send polling signals to said response units over said at least one wireless communication link; wherein said response processors are programmed to control said response transceivers to send response data to said at least one base unit over said at least one wireless communication link in response to one of the polling signals, the response data being entered in the respective response unit by a user; and wherein said at least one base transceiver is controlled by said base processor and said response transceivers are controlled by said response processors to communicate with a spread-spectrum frequency hopping protocol, wherein said at least one base transceiver sends polling signals and said response transceivers send data in response to the polling signals using time domain multiplexing; wherein said at least one base unit provides frequency hopping information to said response units so that said response units can respond to the polling signals, wherein said polling signals include an initial transmission having a seed packet and wherein said response units receive said polling signals and determine a hop frequency to send a response to that particular polling signal as a function of the information contained in the seed packet and as a function of an address assigned to the response unit, wherein at least some of said response units send a response to a particular polling signal at different hop frequencies.