Ohmygosh it is cold, very cold. I’m not made for this -11 this morning, rising to -8 this afternoon, looking forward to a balmy -2 tomorrow.
So far, learning to ski other than being cold, has been good fun, though pains are occurring in strange places this evening. We’re heading out tomorrow for another day of ‘learning’ at the conclusion of which, I hope to be able to turn a tighter circle than a 747, but I wouldn’t bet on it.
IETF is over, and boy was it a tough week, acronyms everywhere, drafts and protocols being the main topic of conversation (the odd bit of sci-fi trivia), quite intimidating for a newbie, though all-in-all very interesting.
Today, Dee and I began our vacation, this morning we headed out to Capilano Bridge to see what it was all about, then came back into downtown, and headed across to Granville Island. The Granville market was almost Bazaar like, though not quite on the same scale. Very enjoyable to wander through. We even managed to pick up a few items so that jolly-fat-guy will have something to ho ho ho about over Christmas.
Last Wednesday evening I attended a meeting of the Vector Emergency Communications group. It was an AGM so I didn’t hang around too long, though I did get a quick tour of the EOC from Fred, VE7CX, before he had to tend to his AGM duties.
Early Thursday morning, I headed out to Burnaby Communications for a few more items for that jolly-fat-guy, and while there John, VE7AYP and Bill, VE7CIM, strongly suggested that I should attend the North Shore Amateur Radio Club’s monthly meeting. So after a evening pass from herself was obtained (through sniffles), I headed out to North Shore. Leif Erickson, VA7CAE and the rest of the club made me feel very welcome and during a break in the talk showed me around their communications centre. The speaker for the evening was Mike Andrews, VE7MPA, regional manager in the BC, Ministry of Public Safefy and Solicitor General, who gave a very interesting presentation on the concept of Disaster Response Routes, an overview of Disaster Response, and how Amateur Radio operators fit into the overall plan. Very interesting indeed.
Next stop, Whistler!
While JB was reminiscing, I was developing some new skills.
Along with some gentle encouragement from Mr Ronan, (aka my dad). Which often sounded very like “What the fsck are you doing that for”?
To use that old chestnut, a lot done, more to do.
An email from Sven Grahn arrived in my inbox (from a mailing list) over the weekend. Along with other satellite monitors, he is doing some cool stuff. I really need to get my act together and get building some aerials. This may be the encouragement that is needed.
I read this earlier and went looking for information on UX-19.
“Amateurs at the University of Tennessee Amateur Radio Club are launching a balloon with a beacon in the 10 MHz Amateur Band that may travel across the Atlantic during its 5-day mission.
The latest Icarus X mission UX-19, will hopefully launch by next weekend and its goal is to be the first Amateur Radio equiped helium balloon to cross the Atlantic.
The balloon payload will include a GPS unit and CPU that will regulate the balloon’s altitude and send telemetry on 10.123 MHz in CW and RTTY formats.
The 10 MHz transmitter will run 3 watts output into a half wave dipole hung below the balloon.
The students need receiving stations to copy the telemetry data. They have developed a decoding program that anyone can download from the University of Tennessee web site which will relay the values back to the campus server.”
They have quite a cool video from an earlier launch:
The Distributed Tracking and Relay Client (DTRC) application is interesting, as it should be possible to receive reports from anywhere in the world that the signal is received. This means that the students have a very large potential network of ground stations. Their demonstration of the DTRC client seems to be running on a MAC, so I guess it should work fine on parallels. I must try it out later and see if it does.
Thanks to Miguel for the link. Is it just me, or is this very funny? Answers on a postcard please…..
Reports on mailing lists seem to indicate that the new Kenwood TM-D710 has a properly working KISS mode and works fine with Airmail. So it should work for TCP/IP as well. Not everyone likes all the new ‘features’, however, as the radio is firmware upgradeable it should get ‘better’ over time.
Much as I would have liked to see smart-beaconing, I have finally given in to temptation, so to make room, the PCR-1000 is departing (no need to learn Python now), with a new TM-D710E on order.
After the Radio Rally, Conor, EI4JN, took away a few copies of the Puppy Linux EMCpup CD and I suggested to him that he try it out himself given he had never used Linux.
He let me know during the week that he had used it for to complete some PSK31 contacts. This is impressive, not that he was able to make the contact, but because he had no experience of Linux before (and ‘afraid’ of it by his own admission) and was able configure the software to suit his specific station with no external help. I’ve suggested to him that he next make his own CD (from the existing one) customised for his own station.
I’m looking forward to getting back home to try it out myself as I’m currently travelling on behalf of WIT/TSSG.
“Software for the Narrow Band Emergency Messaging System (NBEMS), is now available for testing. This system maximizes the use of radio amateurs for providing emergency communications.
The system works with most soundcard-equipped computers and is completely contained on a “Live” CD (EMCpup), based on Puppy Linux (2.17), flarq (1.0) and fldigi (2.0), Every effort has been made to make the OS transparent to the user, so no Linux experience is required. The system has been in development for the past year and can be downloaded and burned to a CD from: http://www.w1hkj.com/emcpup.html under the link to the CD image. The goal of the NBEMS is just to be able to bridge a widescale disaster area of up to 100 miles, without any reliance on a centralized repeater network, or mailboxes, and use as little space as possible.”
Whats most interesting about this is its a bootable ISO image. No install required. Hopefully I’ll be able to convince some of the AREN membership to try it.
We have a Radio Rally (Called a Hamfest in the USA), this Sunday, and I was looking around my shack thinking that I should probably bring some unused gear in and sell it on. I spied my Icom PCR-1000. It has been sitting pretty much unused since Dxtuners closed earlier this year, so it was a prime candidate for re-sale. I had been using Steve’s PCRD for remote control which is fine, but I was looking for something (Linux based) better for use in the shack (and have too little time to write something myself at the moment). I did a quick Google and found this python app by James Ahlstrom. It is just what I was looking for, thanks James, my PCR1000 shall remain, now I just need to learn some Python!
Bernard alerted me to this yesterday.
he_track = “EI8FDB-7”; // track this callsign
As a follow-up to my previous post the Kenwood TM-D710E (E for Europe) is available and shipping. Now there is another question waiting to be answered, is it any good in KISS mode? No one seems to know for sure, but the buffer size has increased. Ok, so they left out Smart-beaconing but the radio is apparently firmware upgrade-able, which means that the potential is there to do upgrades depending on user feedback.
Coming back to KISS mode, invariably. In general we tend to (at least I always have) run the the serial port of the Radio Modem (TNC) at a higher speed than the radio channel, this reduces latency in getting data from the computer out to RF, and the combination of large RAM buffer and RTS/CTS handshaking means that everything happens as efficiently as possible and no buffers overflow.
The predecessor to the TM-D710, the TM-D700 (and TS-2000 and TH-D7G2), all share a common “TASCO” TNC implementation. The problem is that its buffer is quite small, and it seems not to have RTS/CTS implemented. This means that in KISS mode its very easy to overflow the buffer in the TNC, which causes it to lock up completely.
I recently installed a Linux version of the Winlink TelPac (Packet to Telnet) software on the Packet node I maintain in WIT, and over the last few days, for AREN purposes, I have been testing it with Airmail, which works great.
Not having the good sense to leave it alone, I thought I’d try and get the TASCO modems working with Airmail. After many power-cycles of the radio, and much pulling of hair, its now working.
Now, this isn’t for the faint hearted, and, to be honest, for a system to be deployed ‘in the field’, I definitely would NOT recommend using the TASCO TNC in the Kenwood radios (TS-2000/TM-D700/TH-D7) with Airmail , leave them running APRS, like they are designed for.
Anyways, it involves running Airmail, pointing it at a Virtual Serial Port. The HW Virtual Serial port connects to Airmail to AGW Packet Engine linker (AMPE) , which, in turn connects to AGW Packet Engine and finally on to the radio.
After some hints by Demetre, I followed the instructions with AMPE, and it all seems to work, but by any stretch of the imagination, its a nasty, nasty kludge. I’m guessing that the reason it works, is that the virtual serial port software does some kind of flow control, but I really have no idea.
My advice, use a real TNC!