A system for monitoring a gas/oil well is provided with a monitoring unit, a
relay
unit and a host interface. A monitoring unit collects data regarding the status
of the gas/oil well and wirelessly transmits that data to a relay unit. The relay
unit, in turn, connects to a host interface using cellular communications and transmits
the data. The monitoring unit can transmit information on demand or after an alarm
condition is sensed. In either case, the monitoring unit is normally in a sleep
mode. The relay unit can request information from the monitoring unit or respond
to a wake up transmission sent to it from either the host interface or monitoring
unit. The host interface receives data from the relay unit and then informs an
end user of that data.