Patent ID: 6978116

Claim:
A method of controlling the operation of a plurality of transceiver stations from a master site comprising the steps of: (a) transmitting, from said master site to said transceiver stations, a general application information signal that is retransmitted by each of said transceiver stations; (b) storing, in a respective transceiver station, a sequence of commands which, when invoked, cause said respective transceiver station to perform a respective sequence of actions, including the transmission of one or more additional specific application information signals, other than said general application information signal as received from said master site and retransmitted by said respective transceiver station, and wherein the respective sequence of actions of one transceiver station is not necessarily the same as, and can be expected to be different from the respective sequence of actions of another transceiver station of said plurality of transceiver stations; c) transmitting, from said master site to each of said transceiver stations, a prescribed command signal; and (d) at said each of said transceiver stations, receiving said prescribed command signal transmitted from said master site in step c) and, in response thereto, invoking the respective sequence of commands stored in step (b), and thereby causing each respective transceiver station to perform a respective sequence of actions associated with the respective sequence of commands stored thereby, wherein step (b) comprises transmitting respectively different sequences of commands from said master site to respectively different ones of said transceiver stations, and conditionally storing said respectively different sequences of commands at said respectively different ones of said transceiver stations under the same command names, and wherein step (d) comprises, in response to receipt of said prescribed command signal at said respectively different ones of said transceiver stations, invoking respective sequences of commands stored in step (b), and thereby causing said respectively different ones of said transceiver stations to perform respectively different sequences of actions associated with the invoked same sequences of commands.