Wireless Audience Response Keypad Use

After the Base Station is turned on, pass out the Wireless Audience Response Keypad to the meeting participants and demonstrate how the keypad works. Ask each person to press a numeric key on his or her Wireless Audience Response Keypad and observe what happens. When a key on the keypad is pressed, a single digit display will indicate which key of Wireless Audience Response Keypad was activated.

The digit keys (1 through 10) are used to enter numeric responses, including multiple choice questions (A through E) or yes/no answers, into keypad memory. The key must be released to allow the next key press to occur. Entries are transmitted to the Reply CRS940 or CRS941 Base Station, which is then transmitted to the computer via the provided serial cabling. As keys are pressed, the digits are echoed on the seven-segment display (SSD).

During normal operation, the displayed digit will go out within 3 seconds. This indicates to the user that the Base Station has accepted the entry and the hardware is operational.
If the light blinks and comes back on, this means that the Base Station addressed the keypad but was not able to accept the entry. This could mean one of a few things:

An invalid choice was made. (Some software packages use a key masking function that rejects entries from certain keys. For example, keys #3 – 9 and 0 may be marked as invalid answers and keys #1 - 2 as valid answers to a Yes/No question.) The participant should press the "Clear" key and enter a new valid answer.

To clear a response, the CLEAR key must be pressed and released before the Reply® CRS940 or CRS941 Base Station receives the keypad transmission. Depending on the number of keypads being scanned, this may take 0.5 second (< 50 keypads) to 2.5 seconds (> 200 keypads). While the "Clear" key is depressed, the keypad will display the letter C on the SSD.

The Wireless Audience Response Keypad is out of range of the Base Station. Try moving the keypad closer to the base. An out of range keypad's LED indicator will wink approximately every 2.5 seconds (with 250 keypads polling).
If the LED indicator on one keypad stays on and never blinks while other keypads are working, check the address and channel of the keypad. If everything appears to be set correctly, then the pad might need factory repair.

There is also a low battery detect circuit built into the keypad to notify the user when the battery is getting low and needs replacement. This causes the LED indicator to flash at a high rate (several times per second) when the battery is getting low and should be replaced. There will, however, still be several hours of usage left in the battery, allowing use of the keypad until the meeting is completed.

Change/Check Wireless Audience Response Keypad Address

Model CRS5200 keypads have a mode that allows the user to change or recall the current keypad address. There are two methods for accessing this mode:

Enter code 951: This feature may be disabled from a previous base command. If it is disabled, use the 951 code listed above.

Once one of the above actions has been performed, the two lower horizontal segments will light on the keypad. At this point, you have 5 seconds to do one of the following actions:

To recall the current address, press the "*" key. The address will blink out on the display (001 - 250).

To set a new address, simply type in the new 3-digit address (i.e. "0"-"0"-"1" = address 1, and "2"-"5"- "0" = address 250).

If the address was changed, the keypad will use this new address on the next keypress.