After a week of playing around with APRS– I’m done, for now. Mostly, that’s due to classes starting next week. My free time over winter break is just about used up. As I said before, I like APRS. I can definitely see trying to apply APRS connectivity to some of my outdoor activities, especially camping. As far as the home station, though, I’m done getting things set up. I can reach the closest digi in town, and that’s really all I need to do with APRS right now.

Share This

I am also inclined to remember farther back in the day– mid to late 1980’s– when I connected my 1200 baud modem to the telephone system, and made use of Telenet and Tymnet. These networks were packet switched networks that allowed you to connect to a local node on the network, and from there connect to any host on the network through a shared backbone circuit. On Telenet, I’d type “C 41412″, and that would connect me (my terminal) to whatever host was connected to node 414 12 (414 being the area code, and 12 being the individual host).

There were all kinds of hosts on Telenet– most were businesses, some were universities, some were government agencies. Most people didn’t connect to Telenet for recreation (although some of us did- *cough*). Generally, if you were dialing in to something like Telenet, you were doing so because you needed to access resources on the host at the other end of the circuit.

In the 1990’s I got bored with packet radio because, while it was cool to say I could connect to the other side of Texas via TexNet– there was nothing to connect to once I got there. (At least with Telenet, there was the challenge of trying to gain access to the host at the other end once you’d connected. Again, *cough*.)

Today, as I’m writing this, I have Xastir running on my other monitor, watching APRS. I can see stations from all over Wisconsin, eastern Minnesota, northeastern Iowa, and northern Illinois. Most of those stations are repeaters, igates, and weather stations (and many of those are all of the above). There are a few people driving around the state, including truck drivers. I occasionally see a notice for a net, or an ARES meeting attached to a station. Technically speaking, I’m not really “on” APRS– I don’t have a keying circuit connected to my radio (yet), so I don’t appear on the map (yet). But I can watch packets coming in.

It’s interesting reading online about how APRS routes traffic, and then watching the raw packets. The picture becomes even more clear when I watch aprs.fi on my other monitor– aprs.fi graphically shows the route an APRS packet takes, and I can compare that to what I see on RF. There’s a lot of learning going on here: setting up devices in Ubuntu Linux to get soundmodem and Xastir working, making the hardware connections between sound card and radio, watching how propagation on 144.390mhz changes from day to night (and on PropNET).

I can see 103 stations on my map. A few of them provide weather data, a few provide position data, a few are repeaters showing frequency and PL info. I’ve been able to scroll around, and look at areas where I like to get outside and play– places like Eagle River, WI– and see what kind of connectivity I can expect when I’m camping in the middle of a National Forest next summer. That’s valuable information as well; many of the places I like to camp are without reliable cell voice service, much less data. It is useful to know that some guy in a truck that lives 4.6 miles from my future campsite can reliably reach a digipeater– that means I probably can, too.

APRS is popular, and for good reason. I’ve become a fan, and I think APRS is a cool application of amateur packet radio. I’ve been learning a lot from playing with APRS. I think it’s important, though, to remember that APRS isn’t the only application for AX.25. DX-clusters and Winlink2000 are also both useful applications– but in the 40-odd years amateur radio operators have been tinkering with AX.25, is this it? Isn’t there something else useful we can come up with, between AX.25 and the Internet, that we want to do at the other end of the circuits we create?

Share This

We’ll see if that’s true. I’m dusting things off around the shack, yet again– it has been a long time since I’ve really had everything powered up. College has taken up much of my time (and will continue to do so), as has work. I have also been doing some biking, kayaking, hiking, and camping, all of which means I have new opportunities to use some of my radio gear.

I’ve taken myself out of ARES/RACES activities for a number of reasons. The amount of gear and support stuff needed to really put together a working emergency station is far more than I can afford on my own. Between work and college, I have no time for meetings and training. Finally, and most important, emergency communications requires a mindset that the world is unsafe and a disaster can happen any time and any place. That mindset is not at all healthy for me– not only does it take the fun out of radio as a hobby, that disaster mentality seriously triggers my post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). (The same thing happened with storm tracking activities, which I’m also no longer participating in.)

Which leaves me in a vacuum, sort of. The book, and the hobby, are still here, but what’s left to read?

I am, and will be for the forseeable future, in an apartment where antennas are a challenge. I have a couple of options for 10m, including the rain gutter outside my patio door and using a simple tuned wire, that I’m going to look at again. 6m works when I have my 6m jpole hanging in a tree outside, but that’s a summertime activity. I have one opening to outside, and that’s a patio door– so running an antenna cable means my door is open. Not much of an option in winter in Wisconsin. So this winter will involve more experimenting with antennas. Once I can hear something, I’ll get some audio plugged into the computer and see what I can do with that. Maybe I’ll get really ambitious and get going with packet again. Maybe I’ll get my audio issues with EchoLink ironed out (I’m running EchoLink for Windows now, using Wine under Linux.)

I do have spring and summer to look forward to; I’m transferring to the University of Wisconsin, which has both a College of Engineering and a amateur radio club. And, now that I have the majority of my camping gear set, I can turn some attention to taking my radio gear out into the woods. So winter will be about preparing for nice weather– getting cables together, rewiring a microphone, picking up supplies, connectors, etc.

So I’ll be busy, and it’ll take time, but I’m getting things dusted off and powered back up again. I have to find where amateur radio fits into a busy schedule, but there oughtta be some space somewhere.

Share This

Share This

You can reach me on Facebook, if you’re so inclined.

Share This

I’m using the reading list a handy way of sharing things I’m reading that you might be interested in, without having to post an article that says nothing more than “hey- go read this about -whatever”. As you’re clicking past, I hope you find it useful.

If you haven’t used del.icio.us (or any other social bookmarking site; there are several that work pretty much the same way), here’s an introduction to how it all works.

Share This

They make it easy; in front of the department full of HD TV’s (most of which wouldn’t fit in my apartment, much less on my credit card) was a display of Insignia Coupon Eligible Digital TV Converters for $59.99. There’s only one eligible model. So no, you don’t get a lot of choices, unless you want to drive around to different stores checking out what features each retailer’s box includes. (I didn’t shop around.)

Included with the box was a power adapter, an RF cable, an audio/video cable, a remote with battery, and a short & sweet instruction manual. I was pleasantly surprised that I didn’t need to buy anything else to make DTV work. (I will need to do some additional cabling to get my analog DVD player to coexist with the DTV box, as my TV only has a single coax RF input.) Channel programming was automatic, and simple; I did have to set my local time zone using the setup menus. With DTV, I have an onscreen channel guide that shows what’s on now and what’s on next, closed captioning, text, the ability to change the aspect ratio, access to the second audio program, and content access controls.

My antenna (if you want to call it that) is a 4-foot length of speaker wire alligator clipped to my window blinds—so if you have an antenna that barely works now, you may be surprised at what DTV does for you. Using analog, my local channels were generally pretty clear except for channel 3 (which was usually quite snowy). I often had ghosts, and got an occasional burst of audio static. With DTV, I get all of my local channels with no snow and no ghosts.

I also have some extra channels now. Instead of analog 3, 15, 21, 27, 47, and 57, I now have 3-1, 3-2, 15-1, 15-2, 21-1,21-2,21-3,21-4,21-5,47-1,and 57-1. Each broadcaster has slightly different programming available; your mileage here will vary. NBC 15-2 has weather, and WHA (PBS) has different programming on –2, -3, and –4 depending on the time of day. WHA also simulcasts Wisconsin Public Radio (including HD radio) when they’re not showing TV programming on each of those channels. DTV 3-2 carries My Madison TV14, which on broadcast is only available on DTV. As they say, check your local listings.

So, what’s the verdict? Yes, making the change is worth the effort. The sound and picture are better, even on my old TV. There are still times when there’s nothing on—TV is still TV—but by adding one small set top box I was able to increase my options and make my TV useful for a while longer. If only upgrading amateur radio equipment was so easy.

Coupons are available online at https://www.dtv2009.gov/ .

Share This

The FCC has approved a new nationwide alert system that will send text messages to cell phones to alert Americans when an emergency, disaster, or attack occurs…

Sounds like this will take some time, since according to CNN the agency that will issue the messages hasn’t been created/decided on yet. I like the idea; I’ve been using Google Alerts and Yahoo! Alerts for some time now for severe weather related messages on my phone. More ways to receive information are always a good thing.

Share This

• March
  • 20: Dane County ARES/RACES meeting, UW Space Place, 7:00pm
  • 25: NWS Storm Spotter Training, Fitchburg Community Center, 6:30pm
  • 28, 29: AES Superfest, Milwaukee WI (Not sure which day I’m going, depends on work.)
• April
  • 26: Crazylegs Classic (running, not helping with comm support)

  Share This

  ]]> http://www.kc9jmf.net/2008/03/18/upcoming-events/feed/ 0 http://www.kc9jmf.net/2008/03/14/add-another-band-to-the-list-6-meters/ http://www.kc9jmf.net/2008/03/14/add-another-band-to-the-list-6-meters/#comments Sat, 15 Mar 2008 03:10:47 +0000 airmanopus http://www.kc9jmf.net/2008/03/14/add-another-band-to-the-list-6-meters/ Okay, so I don’t have a microphone working for my IC-735 yet, and I have all but given up on the code for now.
  I’ve had my eye on the Alinco DR-M06 6 meter rig for a while now, Okay, so it’s not Alinco’s newest model, I like it anyway– it was also slightly cheaper. Since I don’t have a base antenna up yet (here we go with getting antennas airborne again), it’s going to live life as a mobile for a while. I did some Googling about 6 meters, and discovered that WBAY-TV 2 in Green Bay WI has a well written FAQ article about how propagation affects their low VHF signal (they transmit on 55.26mhz). Also found a list of modifications for 6 meter rigs, including the extended receive unlock for the DR-M06T. Didn’t even have to void the warranty.

  Yeah, there’s a lot of stuff I could have bought that would be a lot more practical in an emergency. Oh well, this radio’s about fun.

  Share This

  ]]> http://www.kc9jmf.net/2008/03/14/add-another-band-to-the-list-6-meters/feed/ 0