Re: [digitalradio] Help files in vbdigi
VBdigi is looking for the following files in D:\Program Files\NBEMS directory: emailsetup.rtf flarq.rtf logbook.rtf messaging.rtf vbdigi.rtf vbdigisetup.rtf Do a search for flarq.rtf and tell me where it is located on your system. Thanks. Skip - Original Message - From: jhaynesatalumni [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: digitalradio@yahoogroups.com Sent: Wednesday, January 09, 2008 11:06 PM Subject: [digitalradio] Help files in vbdigi I have vbdigi installed in D:\Program Files\NBEMS The help files are in there but when I click on help in vbdigi it doesn't find them. Where is it looking for them? No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.5.516 / Virus Database: 269.19.0/1216 - Release Date: 1/9/2008 10:16 AM
[digitalradio] Re: Curmudgions and an idea for digital operation
Hate to tell you but some of us cranky, bitter, and rude (old) men have simply been there and done that. You just don't want to hear that. For example, do you think a permanently installed ham antenna is going to survive on a roof top when all other commercial grade antennas have been destroyed? Part of our ability to do emcomm is using our OWN equipment in a portable fashion to replace that which has been destroyed. The other part is the geographic spread of hams in a location. It makes what gets destroyed somewhat random. Relying on prepositioned equipment is no better than public safety doing the same. Some of us are trying to point out that if you want to be a pro, then stand up and be one. Don't just recommend ham radio as the salvation. Have you or others ever recommended that a hospital invest in a commercial system for communications backup rather than amateur radio and then helped them take bids and supervise the installation? Do you look at public safety radio equipment first and ham radio last for backup purposes? Have you ever told the ARC or SA they should include commercial radios in their shelter standard inventory? Something simple that a REACT person could set up. That way when you've moved out of state for your job, Tom has a new wife and twins, Joe is laid up from a job accident, and Bill simply can't get there they have a communications system independent of ham radio volunteers. These are all issues some of have dealt with and have experience in. Some of us have lost our predilection with being ham-centric in all things radio related. Jim WA0LYK --- In digitalradio@yahoogroups.com, Alan Barrow [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: jim writes: Look I'm not saying we shouldn't volunteer. However, beware strangers bearing gifts and all that. I don't know how old you are but you appear to have a bias against us older folks. To be clear: my old fart comment is in reference to a mindset and behavior, not any individual's age. I have my share of gray, been licensed not quite 30 years. Born before the 60's hit. But if I was to do a black box analysis of the ham radio system, it'd be hard not to conclude that HF is populated solely by cranky, bitter, and rude men. :-) Not the curmudgeon patina earned by our vintage members. :-) Let someone older and wiser tell you it would be very unusual for government money to come with no strings attached. Strings that can be pulled sometime. For instance, should a serious recession or god forbid a depression come around, you can bet that sunk investment will look mighty good for day to day use. All I'm saying is that what might happen might not be the best for ham radio. Back to circular argument number 15 from QRZ.. most agencies (and certainly hospitals) cannot send their non-emergency traffic via ham radio methods. We are a very weak limited fallback. But still the one eyed man So I personally believe the risk of being annexed because we put reserve coax, antennas, and maybe even radios in agencies is very small. But back to digital radio I've got an idea to stack 3 psk signals together side by side and run in a normal SSB radio. Multiplex the data across the multiple psk paths. I think that would be legal, and technically possible. No restriction I see on multiple transmissions with different data streams. Any single signal meets symbol rate bandwidth fcc restrictions even as proposed by the new petition. Might could even do 4! Or maybe do the same with Pactor 1 to get ARQ, already looking at the linux source. Kind of like the fsk/afsk debate. Is it a different mode if you can't tell the signal's apart remotely? Turing test for radio. That's what I'll move to if we ban the wider data modes. Think it will work? Have fun, Alan
Re: [digitalradio] Emergency agencies/ ham equipment/ hams in emcomm
As we have been finding out through testing, ALE may have a place in a few niche interest areas but it is likely to be of limited value on the ham bands, and not well supported, since the shared nature of the bands do not lend themselves well to this kind of continuously dedicated frequencies. If the FCC does rule that ALE soundings are a legal activity, there is the potential for unintended consequences if we allow beaconing throughout the HF bands. The data transfer of ALE is not good enough from what the majority of us have tried when using the wide bandwidth form of 8FSK2000, however the narrow 8FSK400 mode has proven itself to be quite robust, a far better fit for a shared frequency band, and with better throughput, in many cases, because it works under much more difficult conditions. This is especially pronounced during emergency situations with low power and mediocre antennas! If you really want to get support for your special interest area, I might suggest that you need to be careful with your choice of words. It is far better to work with human nature, and not against it. You need to come up with positive reasons to support something and if you have really have something of value to offer, others may gravitate toward it over time. Because one of your spokespeople takes an extreme attitude toward others, you have paid a dear price. One only has to look at the vitriol on qrz.com and other forums, when something like ALE is brought up. It is nearly universally derided by 95% or more of the posters. You need to think about why that is. Consider the belief that older technology is of reduced value compared with new technology. It is these very same old technologies that actually work during an emergency. Particularly, the one main need of tactical voice which is the most needed emergency communications. This is one of the inherent values of amateur radio over other forms of emergency communications. The high technology systems can fail and when they do it is the low tech systems that can temporarily provide limited emergency assistance. It can not replace the previously damaged infrastructure but it can help. Having digital modes can be helpful too, if they work. The more complicated systems, and the more they depend upon the internet for most of their operation, such as Winlink 2000, the more risk you have that it won't be there when you most need it. Building decentralized systems that can also interoperate with existing systems, (even Winlink 2000) makes much more sense. You claim that some are saying we have no business even providing emergency service. and yet no one from this group has claimed that hams should not be involved with emergency communications. Misrepresenting other hams' viewpoints does not lend credence toward your views. Why make such statements? Instead of complaining about RTTY contests vs a digital mode that may not be legal, you should be welcoming clarification from the FCC. And if the FCC rules against you, you should then petition them to change the rules. But your group is not doing this. Instead you try to silence anyone who even tries to get some clairity on what is and what is not responsible behavior in such cases. Is it because you know the rules do not support what you are currently doing and it makes you uncomfortable to have other hams point out that what you are doing appears to be in violation of the rules? It appears so to me. Why else would your spokesperson act in such a malignant manner and personally attack those who want clarification? The ironic part of all this is that most of us have a lot more in common than have differences. Most all the hams I personally know want to help at some level depending upon their interests and abilities.But when you are unwilling to deal with basic issues and attack those who do, you ought not be wondering why you do not get the support you are looking for. 73, Rick, KV9U Andy wrote: Digital communication for ham emcomms is similarly a farce. ALE is underused and grossly misunderstood by hams. Winlink appears effective but out of the reach of most hams (on HF) , and other modes without ARQ are just not going to cut it. NBEMS is too new to evaluate, PSK Mail has promise but does not have enough users. - Alan wrote: It really disillusioned me that the most advanced network we could assemble in coastal MS was 2m voice nets with HF interstate links. 1950's tech. We could have well used packet capability from 80's, but largely MIA. Needed email/hf links, but few had airmail/P23. (But those who did provided a real and valuable service) --- Alan also wrote: I would not call it a farce, but somewhat agree otherwise. But that's in our control. What are we going to improve that? Write it off? I don't think ALE is a panacea, but it offers much. We are still learning new ways to use it, and are building a core infrastructure.
Re: [digitalradio] Pactor Packet Spot Page now up.
On the Spot Page and monitoring 14.078 as of 1615Z Howard W6IDS Richmond, IN - Original Message - From: vk4jrc [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: digitalradio@yahoogroups.com Sent: Thursday, January 03, 2008 9:19 PM Subject: [digitalradio] Pactor Packet Spot Page now up. Hi all Pactor Packet people, Sholto, KE7HPV has been kind enough to put up a spot page for Pactor Packet operators. See http://www.projectsandparts.com/pactor/ Hope this will stir up some interest Thanks Sholto :-)
Re: [digitalradio] Re: Curmudgions and an idea for digital operation
jgorman01 wrote: Hate to tell you but some of us cranky, bitter, and rude (old) men have simply been there and done that. I certainly saw and worked with some generous kind old man hams in my efforts. (Shared a shelter operation with an 80 year old!!) But did not see hardly any of the same ones that annoy us all on HF there. The rude, cranky, selfish types. For example, do you think a permanently installed ham antenna is going to survive on a roof top when all other commercial grade antennas have been destroyed? This tells me you've not been there, and are missing the point. Yes, ham antennas do survive when properly installed on hospital shelter rooftops. It's the repeaters and high sights which do not. Even in a hurricane. Now if the EOC is leveled, as happened in the county I worked in coastal Miss, all bets are off. The reason hospitals (and such) preinstall antennas is not to support their communications, it's to be able to communicate with ad-hoc shelters relief efforts. IE: With the very volunteers you mention. Most often on 2m, but at times you need HF. No, the HF dipole won't survive. But the coax to the roof, the radial net, the antenna mount, and the HF vertical carefully stored in the closet will. And will go up in 15m. Part of our ability to do emcomm is using our OWN equipment in a portable fashion to replace that which has been destroyed. The other part is the geographic spread of hams in a location. It makes what gets destroyed somewhat random. Relying on prepositioned equipment is no better than public safety doing the same. You've never had to stand outside a large building to get coverage then. Or deal with running coax out a door, around the side of the building, etc. 300' of coax pinched in a door to keep skeeters out rather than a nice clean run of prepositioned coax. I spent quite a bit of time with the head of mtc of one of our local hospital families. He's a good friend, and wanted a joint debrief on what he I both saw at Katrina. His action was to pre-position multiple coax runs, dual band antenna (short diamond type), etc. Common sense stuff. If the need arises he's now setup to communicate with ham volunteers. This means those manning red cross shelters, ferrying relief supplies, ferrying staff, etc. Not hospital business, but community recovery efforts. Have you ever told the ARC or SA they should include commercial radios in their shelter standard inventory? Again, it's clear you've never participated in a large scale relief effort by your questions. ARC has dedicated low band freqs for their primary ops. What they do not have, and will be unlikely to ever afford is radios/gear/ops for every shelter in a large scale disaster. That's where ham's fill the gap. There were hundred's of shelters in Katrina. Each with dozens to hundreds of people in them. 20+ shelters in the single county I worked. Only one of them had communications during the hurricane itself, because a lowly no code tech barely out of highschool had the foresight to preposition his IC-706 and a dual band antenna prior to the storm. As soon as it was safe, he erected HF dipole so he could monitor the nets, and as soon as other ham's arrived they were linked. The others simply were out of communication. No way to get medical assist. No way to get law enforcement. (the two main types of communications assist shelters need) These are all issues some of have dealt with and have experience in. Some of us have lost our predilection with being ham-centric in all things radio related. Let's see, we used: - GMRS - Red Cross low band (for several days I had a Red Cross mobile radio installed in my truck) Again, far afield from digital radio. I had not realized that the digitalradio forum was so anti-emcomm, which is a bit sad, as it's a natural fit. Last post from me on this subject. Have fun, Alan km4ba
Re: [digitalradio] Emergency agencies/ ham equipment/ hams in emcomm
Hi Rick, From reading your comments I see you still fail to fully understand the potential value of ALE to Amateur Radio, especially to ECOM. ALE is the great facilitator to follow on communications, nothing aside from MIL-STD AQC-ALE and the host of copy cat systems such by the likes of CODAN, RHODE SCHARTZ and TADIRAN even come close to the HF linking capabilities of ALE. Rick you continue to spew out all kinds of negative comments and spin that is just not correct with just enough positive comment that there is hope for you in understanding ALE yet. Keep it up as it likely benefits someone that may read what you have to say and gets interesting in looking into ALE as they may not otherwise get interested, much like there is no such thing as a stupid question, someone may benefit from the question being asked. The FCC sub bands for automated operation 100% appropriate for ALE operation when a station is Sounding, attended or unattended in the digital sub bands and other uses of ALE are appropriate under the rules outside those sub bands, as well as outside the digital sub bands altogether if one lives within FCC jurisdiction. After the ALE link has been established based on whatever type of ALE call has been made, preferably based on the best ranked LQA frequency selection, the follow on protocols/waveforms used are NOT limited to the 125 wpm AMD protocol (which is a very basic FEC protocol) but rather allows for anything to be used after the ALE link. However the DTM and especially the DBM protocols are very good, DBM ARQ is every bit as robust if not more so than GTOR or PACTOR I as a matter of fact. Another benefit at this point in time WRT ALE as applied to the ARS is that it is no longer limited to a hardware only solution with a narrow range of expensive options as it originally was, this was the stumbling point of ARS interest when ALE was first introduced to the ARS in the pages of QEW and QST. ALE tools being software modem/controller based using the PC Sound Device Modem (PCSDM) has brought ALE to any Radio Amateur interested, we are only at the starting gate with respect to ALE and ARS application, you really have not seen anything yet compared to what is to come. What you just don't seem to get is that an ALE network provides the best means of supporting 24/7 HF networking in the selection of frequency and station(s) of interest via numerous linking call types to enable either one to one or one to many station communications, attended or unattended, local drop or store/forward, bridged to one or more automated delivery systems with return paths outside HF radio or not. There really are no limitations to the application of ALE within or outside of the ARS when it comes to HF communications link establishment, it is truly and unlimited system. Can the application of ALE be adapted within the existing limited framework of ARS operations, yes, it already has, should ARS welcome and adapt to the full potential of ALE is really the question, for which I feel the answer is Yes. However I am not running around pushing that as an agenda, I you have not noticed my posts are in response to those with questions or positions where the facts need presenting. In my view either the ARS ( especially those involved with ECOM ) will grasp the application of ALE and put it to work for the benefit of the ARS or not, if not then it will be a wasted opportunity to improve Amateur Radio HF networking in my opinion. Rick, I can't put my finger on just what it is yet, but something is standing in your way of really seeing the potential of ALE. The potential of ALE based communications to the Amateur Radio Service for HF networking is huge, you seem to be part way there, I hope you hang in there. Anyhow, lunch time is running out and I need to finish up and get back to my day job work. 73 /s/ Steve, N2CKH At 11:22 AM 1/10/2008, you wrote: As we have been finding out through testing, ALE may have a place in a few niche interest areas but it is likely to be of limited value on the ham bands, and not well supported, since the shared nature of the bands do not lend themselves well to this kind of continuously dedicated frequencies. If the FCC does rule that ALE soundings are a legal activity, there is the potential for unintended consequences if we allow beaconing throughout the HF bands.
Re: [digitalradio] Emergency agencies/ ham equipment/ hams in emcomm
Rick wrote: As we have been finding out through testing, Hmm, you've been testing ALE? Don't see you in many of the logs. I've been testing/using/linking ALE for a couple of years now. Getting a really good understanding of what works well, what does not, etc. I know you have a very strong position on all things ALE related, so not going to debate it here. ALE may have a place in a few niche interest areas but it is likely to be of limited value on the ham bands, and not well supported, I know you have a very strong negative position on all things ALE related, so not going to debate it here. since the shared nature of the bands do not lend themselves well to this kind of continuously dedicated frequencies. Dedicated frequencies?? Huh? We share the most contested 5khz of spectrum in all hamdom!! And try to be good neighbors. If the FCC does rule that ALE soundings are a legal activity, there is the potential for unintended consequences if we allow beaconing throughout the HF bands. The ALE network still adds significant value even without sounding. Not going to debate sounding here, you've already asked for clarification. The data transfer of ALE is not good enough from what the majority of us have tried when using the wide bandwidth form of 8FSK2000, Can you point to a higher throughput soundcard data transfer protocol? Freely available? Which can interoperate with HW ALE radios? It's not perfect, in fact there is still much to do. I'd have to concede for througput, P2 P3 still win. But at a high cost in dollars and philosophy. And only because we cannot use the faster modes due to symbol rate. There are versions of the FS protocol which have had the symbol rate dialed back which would be legal and work great. however the narrow 8FSK400 mode has proven itself to be quite robust, a far better fit for a shared frequency band, and with better throughput, in many cases, because it works under much more difficult conditions. The current thought process for the ALE teams is to enable use of any data transfer modes the linked stations would like. Pactor, psk, olivia, 8fsk400, fae, whatever. If you really want to get support for your special interest area, I don't have an agenda. I do feel there are some significant advantages to ALE, and that it's the best horse we have to ride right now. But never have promoted one to the detriment of others. I have challenged the nothing else comes close soundcards can't do hi thruput positioned expoused by hardware TNC bigots. But I also use other digital modes, including the hated pactor. But also olivia, fae, etc Because one of your spokespeople takes an extreme attitude toward others, you have paid a dear price. One only has to look at the vitriol on qrz.com and other forums, when something like ALE is brought up. Ahh, the personal axe. I get it. Say no more. I've figured out that the QRZ forums are populated largely by anti-digital (in any forms) hams. With some strong PSK31 advocates. They are not keen on newer modes of any kind, including Olivia, etc. So there will never be a receptive audience there, nor would I expect one. eham.net is more open minded, and I find the quality of the posting to be a step above the personal attacks tolerated on QRZ. I now scan QRZ mainly for entertainment value, but it's a sad commentary on our hobby. And ever one of those flame wars brings more users online. They just don't post. Same even here. I've already been receiving private email on this whole thread. Comments like this: I have been waiting for a cogent and cohesive response to the nonsense on the digital radio group (Yahoo) about public service, winlink, etc. You provided it. Thanks. You claim that some are saying we have no business even providing emergency service. and yet no one from this group has claimed that hams should not be involved with emergency communications. Have you read the threads from the last few days? Mlooks like enough money to buy some dedicated commercial frequencies, to move WinLink off the Ham bands :-) I'm not going to dig them out, but it was enough to push me out of lurker mode. General tone: Emcomm assist from hams is not needed, not welcome. Use commercial Instead of complaining about RTTY contests Actually, I did not complain about rtty contests. I just pointed it out as an example of other modes/operations which are doing the same exact action you criticise the winlink ops of doing. And it's factual, a known issue, been discussed multiple times, annoying cw, psk, all the digital ops, and even some ssb ops. One of my best friend is a hard core rtty contester. And even he admits this is an issue. I think sometimes it's people calling with the decode sw set incorrectly. Other times it's splits. vs a digital mode that may not be legal, you should be welcoming clarification from the FCC. Ahh, the symbol rate
Re: [digitalradio] Re: Curmudgions and an idea for digital operation
Guys, You both have valid views. Isn't it more that one is mostly discussing smaller types of disasters, the ones that are the most common, and the other is discussing much larger scale incidents that rarely happen (but they do happen and we may wish to consider preparing for them as best we can)? Mostly it is a matter of degree. How much infrastructure survived? How many hams remain in the area and who are not affected by the situation to the point of not being able to help locally? How bad is the situation? How many resources is government putting into the area? In an ideal world, when disasters occur, there will be enough resources from emergency management to handle any situation. But realistically we know this is not possible. Therefore, volunteers help to temporarily alleviate the shortfalls of at least some of the resources. We hams can lend our assistance to communications shortfalls and even other areas if we wish to do so. While most hams do not participate with emegency groups on a regular basis, my experience has been that many will help the call goes out. It is a lot to ask someone to do this. We saw that recently with our flood disaster her in SW Wisconsin this past summer. There is often a substantial amount of politics involved in any volunteer activity of this type and it turns off many who would otherwise be active. This is more true of amateur radio because in order to be in a leadership position in ARES you must be an ARRL member. That excludes almost 80% of hams. If they live in a Section with different emergency groups, they may be able to find their comfort zone with other groups or agencies. In our Section, we have one amateur radio group, which is a combined ARES/RACES structure. On thing I want to reinforce, is that just because you don't totally agree with each other is no reason to claim that this forum is anti-emcomm. Many of us have this as one of our primary interests and some cases may have been involved in this activity with CAP, MARS, and ham radio, for many decades. 73, Rick, KV9U Alan Barrow wrote: jgorman01 wrote: Hate to tell you but some of us cranky, bitter, and rude (old) men have simply been there and done that. I certainly saw and worked with some generous kind old man hams in my efforts. (Shared a shelter operation with an 80 year old!!) But did not see hardly any of the same ones that annoy us all on HF there. The rude, cranky, selfish types. For example, do you think a permanently installed ham antenna is going to survive on a roof top when all other commercial grade antennas have been destroyed? This tells me you've not been there, and are missing the point. Yes, ham antennas do survive when properly installed on hospital shelter rooftops. It's the repeaters and high sights which do not. Even in a hurricane. Now if the EOC is leveled, as happened in the county I worked in coastal Miss, all bets are off. The reason hospitals (and such) preinstall antennas is not to support their communications, it's to be able to communicate with ad-hoc shelters relief efforts. IE: With the very volunteers you mention. Most often on 2m, but at times you need HF. No, the HF dipole won't survive. But the coax to the roof, the radial net, the antenna mount, and the HF vertical carefully stored in the closet will. And will go up in 15m. Part of our ability to do emcomm is using our OWN equipment in a portable fashion to replace that which has been destroyed. The other part is the geographic spread of hams in a location. It makes what gets destroyed somewhat random. Relying on prepositioned equipment is no better than public safety doing the same. You've never had to stand outside a large building to get coverage then. Or deal with running coax out a door, around the side of the building, etc. 300' of coax pinched in a door to keep skeeters out rather than a nice clean run of prepositioned coax. I spent quite a bit of time with the head of mtc of one of our local hospital families. He's a good friend, and wanted a joint debrief on what he I both saw at Katrina. His action was to pre-position multiple coax runs, dual band antenna (short diamond type), etc. Common sense stuff. If the need arises he's now setup to communicate with ham volunteers. This means those manning red cross shelters, ferrying relief supplies, ferrying staff, etc. Not hospital business, but community recovery efforts. Have you ever told the ARC or SA they should include commercial radios in their shelter standard inventory? Again, it's clear you've never participated in a large scale relief effort by your questions. ARC has dedicated low band freqs for their primary ops. What they do not have, and will be unlikely to ever afford is radios/gear/ops for every shelter in a large scale disaster. That's where ham's fill the gap. There were
RE: [digitalradio] Emergency agencies/ ham equipment/ hams in emcomm
I walked the piney woods and hills of East Texas in cold and rain looking for the astronauts and parts of the shuttle Columbia. Ham radio via repeaters was the only way to communicate on a wide scale in that area at that time. Yes, cell phones worked in some areas but would have been a PITA when you wanted a message to all the numerous groups deployed in the woods. The FBI manager directing the effort said, If we wanted a message to go through, we gave it to the hams. Right now we are organizing for a communications disaster should a repeat of the Rita evacuation occur in the Houston area. Cell service gets wiped out when 1,000s of people are stuck bumper to bumper on the freeways. The NGOs like United Way and the Food Bank do not want to allocate their resources toward developing communications capabilities. They will provide stations. We provide the people. Rud Merriam K5RUD ARES AEC Montgomery County, TX http://TheHamNetwork.net So I'll ask the folks on this list what have you contributed to amateur radio at all, much less public service? Besides help us understand every possible interpretations of various part 97? :-)
[digitalradio] Re: Help files in vbdigi
--- In digitalradio@yahoogroups.com, kh6ty [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: VBdigi is looking for the following files in D:\Program Files\NBEMS directory: emailsetup.rtf flarq.rtf logbook.rtf messaging.rtf vbdigi.rtf vbdigisetup.rtf Do a search for flarq.rtf and tell me where it is located on your system. That's where it is: D:\Program Files\NBEMS\flarq.rtf
[digitalradio] Re: Curmudgions and an idea for digital operation
Rick, Good posting. I don't know how many times to say it, I'm not against volunteering and using ham radio for emergency communications. However, for me ham radio does come after several other things. I don't think some of the emcomm folks understand this. For the folks that went to the South and helped with Katrina, more power to them. I'm glad they didn't have family or job requirements so they could go there for what was obviously a quite long period of time. To make snide remarks about the, I'll call them middle age hams, that didn't go is an indicator to me of the mindset. Some years back I went to a meeting about joining an ARES group. Let me tell you, they didn't want volunteers, they wanted conscripts. To the point of even saying they expected us to leave our families to fend for themselves at times. I threw the sign up form in the trash and never looked back. My wife would have come home and smashed all my radio gear if she had been there. My family comes first, my property second, friends and neighbors third, and ham radio last. If I had a choice of going to my son's practice or a drill, my son would win out. Tough cookies if the emcomm folks don't like my attitude. The whole point of the thread to begin with was not about doing emcomm work, it was about whether accepting government money to buy ham gear was a good thing. Somewhere the thread got off track. Jim WA0LYK --- In digitalradio@yahoogroups.com, Rick [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Guys, You both have valid views. Isn't it more that one is mostly discussing smaller types of disasters, the ones that are the most common, and the other is discussing much larger scale incidents that rarely happen (but they do happen and we may wish to consider preparing for them as best we can)? Mostly it is a matter of degree. How much infrastructure survived? How many hams remain in the area and who are not affected by the situation to the point of not being able to help locally? How bad is the situation? How many resources is government putting into the area? In an ideal world, when disasters occur, there will be enough resources from emergency management to handle any situation. But realistically we know this is not possible. Therefore, volunteers help to temporarily alleviate the shortfalls of at least some of the resources. We hams can lend our assistance to communications shortfalls and even other areas if we wish to do so. While most hams do not participate with emegency groups on a regular basis, my experience has been that many will help the call goes out. It is a lot to ask someone to do this. We saw that recently with our flood disaster her in SW Wisconsin this past summer. There is often a substantial amount of politics involved in any volunteer activity of this type and it turns off many who would otherwise be active. This is more true of amateur radio because in order to be in a leadership position in ARES you must be an ARRL member. That excludes almost 80% of hams. If they live in a Section with different emergency groups, they may be able to find their comfort zone with other groups or agencies. In our Section, we have one amateur radio group, which is a combined ARES/RACES structure. On thing I want to reinforce, is that just because you don't totally agree with each other is no reason to claim that this forum is anti-emcomm. Many of us have this as one of our primary interests and some cases may have been involved in this activity with CAP, MARS, and ham radio, for many decades. 73, Rick, KV9U Alan Barrow wrote: jgorman01 wrote: Hate to tell you but some of us cranky, bitter, and rude (old) men have simply been there and done that. I certainly saw and worked with some generous kind old man hams in my efforts. (Shared a shelter operation with an 80 year old!!) But did not see hardly any of the same ones that annoy us all on HF there. The rude, cranky, selfish types. For example, do you think a permanently installed ham antenna is going to survive on a roof top when all other commercial grade antennas have been destroyed? This tells me you've not been there, and are missing the point. Yes, ham antennas do survive when properly installed on hospital shelter rooftops. It's the repeaters and high sights which do not. Even in a hurricane. Now if the EOC is leveled, as happened in the county I worked in coastal Miss, all bets are off. The reason hospitals (and such) preinstall antennas is not to support their communications, it's to be able to communicate with ad-hoc shelters relief efforts. IE: With the very volunteers you mention. Most often on 2m, but at times you need HF. No, the HF dipole won't survive. But the coax to the roof, the radial net, the antenna mount, and the HF vertical carefully stored in the closet will. And will go up in 15m.
Re: [digitalradio] Re: Help files in vbdigi
Please try creating a folder, C:\Program Files\NBEMS, copying the files there, and see if VBdigi finds those. Skip - Original Message - From: jhaynesatalumni [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: digitalradio@yahoogroups.com Sent: Thursday, January 10, 2008 4:09 PM Subject: [digitalradio] Re: Help files in vbdigi --- In digitalradio@yahoogroups.com, kh6ty [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: VBdigi is looking for the following files in D:\Program Files\NBEMS directory: emailsetup.rtf flarq.rtf logbook.rtf messaging.rtf vbdigi.rtf vbdigisetup.rtf Do a search for flarq.rtf and tell me where it is located on your system. That's where it is: D:\Program Files\NBEMS\flarq.rtf No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.5.516 / Virus Database: 269.19.0/1216 - Release Date: 1/9/2008 10:16 AM
Re: [digitalradio] Pactor Packet Spot Page now up.
- Original Message - From: vk4jrc [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: digitalradio@yahoogroups.com Sent: Thursday, January 03, 2008 9:19 PM Subject: [digitalradio] Pactor Packet Spot Page now up. Hi all Pactor Packet people, Sholto, KE7HPV has been kind enough to put up a spot page for Pactor Packet operators. See http://www.projectsandparts.com/pactor/ Hope this will stir up some interest Thanks Sholto :-) 73s Jack VK4JRC Announce your digital presence via our Interactive Sked Page at http://www.obriensweb.com/drsked/drsked.php View the DRCC numbers database at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/digitalradio/database Yahoo! Groups Links -- No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.5.516 / Virus Database: 269.17.13/1207 - Release Date: 1/2/2008 11:29 AM
RE: [digitalradio] Re: Curmudgions and an idea for digital operation
Jim, That yourself, family and property are supposed to come first, even in ARES. It is common sense that a volunteer operator is not going to be focused on their activity if they are worrying about all the other issues. Rud Merriam K5RUD ARES AEC Montgomery County, TX http://TheHamNetwork.net -Original Message- From: digitalradio@yahoogroups.com [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of jgorman01 Sent: Thursday, January 10, 2008 3:32 PM To: digitalradio@yahoogroups.com Subject: [digitalradio] Re: Curmudgions and an idea for digital operation Rick, My family comes first, my property second, friends and neighbors third, and ham radio last. If I had a choice of going to my son's practice or a drill, my son would win out. Tough cookies if the emcomm folks don't like my attitude. Jim WA0LYK
[digitalradio] 30 meter Observations
Over the past several weeks I have been operating digital modes on 30m and have come to the conclusion that This is a highly under-rated band. Currently there are 3 automatic spotting stations running on 30M PSK on 10140.0. They are N9Puz, KF4IN, and VK2XGT. The spotting page is very rapid, with spots appearing as fast as you do. VK2XGT is hearing very little North American stations, with only the occasional K6 showing up. The VK station is posting lots of European stations, however and I can only hope that our summer propagation on 30M is as good as what they are hearing. From my QTH, which is DO70QK , N9PUZ is 1668km (1000 miles) away and KF4IN is 3197km (1900 miles) away. Both stations are almost on the same bearing from me (approx 130deg) Most days, N9PUZ is able to hear me from about 1300Z to 0400/0500Z, and posts my call automatically . even when the band appears to be completely dead in the evenings, the N9 station usually posts my call after the first try. KF4IN will post calls from me at different times during the day mainly from 1600z to 2200z. I have not shown up on the VK station. It would be interesting to see a little more activity on 30M in the evenings to see what the propagation really does. The 30M spotting page can be found at http://www.projectsandparts.com/30m/ John VE5MU
[digitalradio] Re: Help files in vbdigi
--- In digitalradio@yahoogroups.com, kh6ty [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Please try creating a folder, C:\Program Files\NBEMS, copying the files there, and see if VBdigi finds those. No, it did not find them there either.
[digitalradio] OT: ARES family priority
--- In digitalradio@yahoogroups.com, Rud Merriam [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Jim, That yourself, family and property are supposed to come first, even in ARES. It is common sense that a volunteer operator is not going to be focused on their activity if they are worrying about all the other issues. And in fact, exactly why volunteers are so critically needed in large scale events like hurricanes. The state EC and county EOC where I spent most of my time were both MIA dealing with family. We understood, and filled a gap. The most visible local ham presence we had in the county I was assigned was the 20yo no-code tech. manned, coordinated, and held things together. He was a hero in our book, and from a demographic not well respected in our hobby. I saw the video of his home being flooded by the storm surge. Not just a bit, submerged and destroyed. The only possessions he had were in a pile in the AV room of the local high school. His car, an IC-706, and a 2m homemade jpole in a pvc stick. Like that ham, most of the local ARES team were heavily impacted themselves. None were active, nor were the repeaters functional. And not too long into the event the full county EOC was destroyed. Leveled, including 911 police dispatch. This does make for an interesting dynamic when the local teams do surface, usually several days into an event. They find strangers setup in ways they had not planned, under different control structures, etc. Lot's of arguments we must use xyz repeater, because that's the published plan when well established simplex nets are encountered. Nevermind the repeater was dead for the 1st N days, and has compromised coverage even 2 weeks in, etc. Saw this in buckets at Hugo and Katrina, two decades apart. Same dynamic. This really is to me the biggest gap in the amateur based planning. No one planned for transition/handoff during recovery in large scale events with lot's of outsiders. Very difficult when a third of the counties in a state are impacted, and can't even get fixed at a regional level because 3-4 states were heavily impacted. With regard to my comments about bitter old men, that's not pointed at anyone here. Or an assumption that if you did not respond, you are in that category. It's a commentary on the consumer mindset permeating our hobby that Andy raised. For the record, I'm officially middle aged, had an understanding boss and tolerant wife. I was able to respond. It was important that I did, because I know many others could not. And some it flat out would never have occurred to. The same ones that posted all the debates on how the response was broken, should not have occurred, should not have used xyz technology, should not disrupt the pottery collecting net with their red cross traffic, etc. At Hugo I had to deal with active jamming/interference for hours on HF when trying to pass traffic. (And where I learned how much more effective digital nets were) If anything, the most challenging volunteers we had to deal with were younger. Energetic, well intentioned, but a bit less steady on average. No issues from the old timers. (And there were many). Again, We had two senior citizens relieve one shelter. They were a hoot. One was almost blind, but heard well (and was 80+). Another was very hard of hearing, but had full vision. Together they were a team. Had never met before, but met on a net, traveled down, and went to work. Did a great job. Bob, I can't find my glasses do you see my glasses? Bob?? Wish I could remember their calls, as to me they were great examples. Have fun, Alan km4ba
Re: [digitalradio] Re: Help files in vbdigi
Ok lets start over. Uninstall NBEMS from Settings/Control Panel/Add or remove prograams. Check to see that D:\NBEMS is gone and if not, delete the folder. To be safe, delete c:\NBEMS if it exists and c:\Program Files \NBEMS. The download the installation program from http://www.w1hkj.com/NBEMS and reinstall. I don't know what has gone wrong, but this problem has never been reported before. That does not mean it will never happen, but the VBdigi code looks for the files in the place that the installation program copies them to. What do you have on C: drive that makes Windows default to D: drive? Maybe that is a clue. 73, Skip KH6TY - Original Message - From: jhaynesatalumni [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: digitalradio@yahoogroups.com Sent: Thursday, January 10, 2008 5:35 PM Subject: [digitalradio] Re: Help files in vbdigi --- In digitalradio@yahoogroups.com, kh6ty [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Please try creating a folder, C:\Program Files\NBEMS, copying the files there, and see if VBdigi finds those. No, it did not find them there either. No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.5.516 / Virus Database: 269.19.0/1216 - Release Date: 1/9/2008 10:16 AM
Re: [digitalradio] 30 meter Observations
Hi John, I've often wondeered why I only see stns from Europe and not the USA. I agree that 30Mx is a fascinating band, a lot like 6Mx only more fun. B-) The Call is VK2XGJ not T. 73, John de VK2XGJ One of the reasons politicians try so hard to get themselves re-elected, because they couldn't live under the laws that they have passed! - Original Message - From: John Bradley [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: digitalradio@yahoogroups.com; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, January 11, 2008 9:23 AM Subject: [digitalradio] 30 meter Observations Over the past several weeks I have been operating digital modes on 30m and have come to the conclusion that This is a highly under-rated band. Currently there are 3 automatic spotting stations running on 30M PSK on 10140.0. They are N9Puz, KF4IN, and VK2XGT. The spotting page is very rapid, with spots appearing as fast as you do. VK2XGT is hearing very little North American stations, with only the occasional K6 showing up. The VK station is posting lots of European stations, however and I can only hope that our summer propagation on 30M is as good as what they are hearing. From my QTH, which is DO70QK , N9PUZ is 1668km (1000 miles) away and KF4IN is 3197km (1900 miles) away. Both stations are almost on the same bearing from me (approx 130deg) Most days, N9PUZ is able to hear me from about 1300Z to 0400/0500Z, and posts my call automatically . even when the band appears to be completely dead in the evenings, the N9 station usually posts my call after the first try. KF4IN will post calls from me at different times during the day mainly from 1600z to 2200z. I have not shown up on the VK station. It would be interesting to see a little more activity on 30M in the evenings to see what the propagation really does. The 30M spotting page can be found at http://www.projectsandparts.com/30m/ John VE5MU No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.5.516 / Virus Database: 269.19.0/1218 - Release Date: 1/10/2008 1:32 PM
Re: [digitalradio] Re: Curmudgions and an idea for digital operation
Hi Jim, One of the prime directives of the ARECC Courses is that you and your family and their safety come first before others. That group was violating basic common sense and emergency recommendations that have been developed over a long time. You don't want someone distracted with personal issues in such an environment. Those of us who have served in the military did enough of that! We do have some very peculiar people these days in leadership positions of various emergency groups who act very elitist and who claim that only hams trained by them or who have taken extensive courses are of much value. Needless to say, most of us know this is absurd since most of the skills can be learned on the job. I have been surprised how poorly some of the trained hams compared at times to those who had more practical knowledge. This does not mean I do not recommend training. I have taken several of the FEMA courses and all three of the ARRL ARECC Level courses. The FEMA courses are of very limited value for most of us. It does not hurt to have an overall understanding of the naming conventions of the different levels and the various horizontal positions, but it is very difficult to even remember the material for the exam. And it does not always match up with other services, such as the miltary, but it is what they have decided will be the terminology so we must follow it. The ARRL courses were fairly good, and there is some leeway in the decision making processes although I really felt that the material could easily be compressed into two courses instead of three. I also would like to see the ARRL material freely available to everyone, just like the FEMA material is available. I have lobbied my Division Director to do this without even a response. I know they want the money for the coursework, but I would never pay for the courses if they had not been subsidized. I realize that depending upon your ARRL Leadership position, different Levels are mandatory, but I often wonder if they are having many sign up for the courses at their own expense. The digital material included in the course work is helpful although it had not really covered the transition toward moving digital in the current direction. I could tell that some of my mentors were not fully supportive of that. As far as accepting government money, that is something that is not always easy to come by, but if we can get some grant money, we are more than willing to make suggestions on how to spend it. The equipment belongs to government in our case, and that has helped us a great deal with our repeater which because of its county emergency support, also has a fabulous location and long term emergency back up power. 73, Rick, KV9U jgorman01 wrote: Rick, Good posting. I don't know how many times to say it, I'm not against volunteering and using ham radio for emergency communications. However, for me ham radio does come after several other things. I don't think some of the emcomm folks understand this. For the folks that went to the South and helped with Katrina, more power to them. I'm glad they didn't have family or job requirements so they could go there for what was obviously a quite long period of time. To make snide remarks about the, I'll call them middle age hams, that didn't go is an indicator to me of the mindset. Some years back I went to a meeting about joining an ARES group. Let me tell you, they didn't want volunteers, they wanted conscripts. To the point of even saying they expected us to leave our families to fend for themselves at times. I threw the sign up form in the trash and never looked back. My wife would have come home and smashed all my radio gear if she had been there. My family comes first, my property second, friends and neighbors third, and ham radio last. If I had a choice of going to my son's practice or a drill, my son would win out. Tough cookies if the emcomm folks don't like my attitude. The whole point of the thread to begin with was not about doing emcomm work, it was about whether accepting government money to buy ham gear was a good thing. Somewhere the thread got off track. Jim WA0LYK
Re: [digitalradio] Re: Oregon Governor Allocates $250,000 for Digital Communications Network
Not knocking the volunteers for sure. I do have a question. How come the money wasn't invested in public safety equipment using public safety NTIA assigned frequencies to do the same thing? the cost involved to purchase commercial equipment, antennas, peripherals, labor to install, and money to implement training for multiple employees, for every county in the State. That $250.000 would be a drop in the bucket. The State is getting one heck of a deal by providing this equipment to the local ham ARES/RACES county groups and letting those hams provide all the rest of the necessities. Ed K7AAT
Re: [digitalradio] Emergency agencies/ ham equipment/ hams in emcomm
IN SC we have a simialr system SCHEARTS that we are building into hospitals. grants provide the equipment and hams have instaslled it into the hospitals. then some of the staff have gotten ham licences also Ares / races supplement the staff. 2M and 440 repeater system. the digital part is APRS and a backbone of linked repeaters across SC
RE: [digitalradio] 30 meter Observations
John and others I just opened MixW and tuned up on 10.140 don't see anything on the waterfall but will try to watch and listen for a bit. XYL just got in from work and dinner will need preparing soon. See you on the waterfall. 73's Curt Curt Givens KC8STE, AAR5VR Army MARS Earthdog and Special Programs Director GCDOC/GCAC Dayton, OH Registering lawful Americans who possess a gun to stop armed criminals, is like registering virgins to stop prostitution. _ From: digitalradio@yahoogroups.com [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of John Bradley Sent: Thursday, January 10, 2008 5:24 PM To: digitalradio@yahoogroups.com; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [digitalradio] 30 meter Observations Over the past several weeks I have been operating digital modes on 30m and have come to the conclusion that This is a highly under-rated band. Currently there are 3 automatic spotting stations running on 30M PSK on 10140.0. They are N9Puz, KF4IN, and VK2XGT. The spotting page is very rapid, with spots appearing as fast as you do. VK2XGT is hearing very little North American stations, with only the occasional K6 showing up. The VK station is posting lots of European stations, however and I can only hope that our summer propagation on 30M is as good as what they are hearing. From my QTH, which is DO70QK , N9PUZ is 1668km (1000 miles) away and KF4IN is 3197km (1900 miles) away. Both stations are almost on the same bearing from me (approx 130deg) Most days, N9PUZ is able to hear me from about 1300Z to 0400/0500Z, and posts my call automatically . even when the band appears to be completely dead in the evenings, the N9 station usually posts my call after the first try. KF4IN will post calls from me at different times during the day mainly from 1600z to 2200z. I have not shown up on the VK station. It would be interesting to see a little more activity on 30M in the evenings to see what the propagation really does. The 30M spotting page can be found at http://www.projects http://www.projectsandparts.com/30m/ andparts.com/30m/ John VE5MU _ No viruses found in this incoming message Scanned by iolo AntiVirus 1.5.1.4 http://www.iolo.com http://www.iolo.com/iav/iavpop3 ___ No viruses found in this outgoing message Scanned by iolo AntiVirus 1.5.1.4 http://www.iolo.com
Re: [digitalradio] Emergency agencies/ ham equipment/ hams in emcomm
Alan, The testing was completed months ago and you know that very well as I have discussed this before. I do not have a particularly strong position on ALE. Have you ever considered that it might be you and your group who take such a view? My view is in the middle as I have stated over and over. In fact, I have been a strong proponent of ALE 400/FAE 400. But it is not what you want to hear. You want hams to rally around your particular agenda of the 8FSK2000 ALE mode as a focal point of emergency communications, and most of us do not support you that far and you extend to take this to mean rejection. It is NOT negative to suggest that the wide bandwidth mode of ALE may have a small part to play in emergency communications. It is a realistic assessment and an honest assessment. If you wish to use ALE for annunciation purposes on the amateur bands, you have no choice other than to designate a specific frequency or in the case of your group, many frequencies, that are used by those members. If soundings are being made on a regular basis by a number of stations, those frequencies can not easily be used for other purposes since you can not move off the frequency due to the channelized ALE paradigm. Otherwise the paradigm fails at that point! This is not the most appropriate technology for a shared band. So you ignore basic reality and don't want to even discuss it (debate it, as you say below). From the testing that a number of us operators have done, and many are from this forum and other as well, the honest truth is that in our experience, the 8FSK2000 ALE mode does not perform as well as other modes. It is not as sensitive and it has low throughput compared to those modes because the HF bands are frequently a difficult environment. Many of us have found that the ALE 400 and particularly the FAE 400 (8FSK400) mode has the best combination of sensitivity, slow to moderate throughput, and robustness. I can think of no case where 8FSK2000 is going to be a better fit for shared frequencies. It is drastically wider, with much more interference potential, and much less sensitive. After all you do not need much throughput for a SELCAL, do you? But you want to keep using a legacy 8FSK mode, which I think most reasonable digital hams would have to admit is an older technology that was intended for channelized commercial and military use. You want to do this because you want to support backward compatibility to embedded hardware. Meanwhile, we have two ARQ sound card modes. The FAE 400 mode and now the NBEM system which works on both Linux and Windows and which can scale from a slow to sometimes moderate speed messaging . Perhaps it can be tied in with 8FSK400 someday or some other SELCAL approach? However, if you folks continue to attack your friends, you won't have many left! You can claim that only anti-digital hams are on QRZ, but more likely you will find that QRZ is the true democratic melting pot of contemporary viewpoints. You may not like what most hams are thinking but they reflect the overwhelming majority view. I can assure you that those of us with reasonable and middle of the road positions get private comments from those who appreciate a more balanced view that looks at the pros and cons. Nothing in life is all one way or the other. There are trade offs. I am willing to stick my neck out and say if the emperor is not wearing any clothes. Most people won't do that. The people who do tend to speak out are those that have an agenda on one side of an issue or the other. Like I always say, the people on the extremes do not want to provide you with all the information that could help you make an informed decision. They only want to support one side. I look at both sides and have to take heat from both. And I have, even on QRZ.com. And as I have said, your spokesperson is one of your worst nightmares because she constantly attacks anyone who even remotely disagrees with her. I have never seen any time that Bonnie has EVER said, you know, maybe you have a point there that I had not thought of. It is only her way or nothing. And as I have said you are paying a severe price for this on the general ham groups who will not tolerate that kind of behavior. She can not do like she did with me and prohibit posts on her group and later remove me from her group for comments made elsewhere because of her seething anger. Just read her inappropriate comments with an open mind for once. My views are again, in the middle path of most of this. Just because I do not agree with some one lockstep is no reason to attack such views. It is better to discuss them specifically. Something that you and your group almost never do. They talk around the subject, but they never will deal with the specific item so it can never get resolved. You read so many of your biases into what others write, that you distort what they are saying as you have done repeatedly as
[digitalradio] Re: 30 meter Observations
John VE5MU, I agree with your observations...the band is great and under used. I can tell you it doesn't die at night, it is open most all night but just not used, thus the auto spotters to provide documentation along with the Propnet stations that are documenting 30m also. de kb9umt Don EN50dp 30MDG#0001 www.30meterdigital.org --- In digitalradio@yahoogroups.com, Curt Givens[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: John and others I just opened MixW and tuned up on 10.140 don't see anything on the waterfall but will try to watch and listen for a bit. XYL just got in from work and dinner will need preparing soon. See you on the waterfall. 73's Curt Curt Givens KC8STE, AAR5VR Army MARS Earthdog and Special Programs Director GCDOC/GCAC Dayton, OH Registering lawful Americans who possess a gun to stop armed criminals, is like registering virgins to stop prostitution. _ From: digitalradio@yahoogroups.com [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of John Bradley Sent: Thursday, January 10, 2008 5:24 PM To: digitalradio@yahoogroups.com; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [digitalradio] 30 meter Observations Over the past several weeks I have been operating digital modes on 30m and have come to the conclusion that This is a highly under-rated band. Currently there are 3 automatic spotting stations running on 30M PSK on 10140.0. They are N9Puz, KF4IN, and VK2XGT. The spotting page is very rapid, with spots appearing as fast as you do. VK2XGT is hearing very little North American stations, with only the occasional K6 showing up. The VK station is posting lots of European stations, however and I can only hope that our summer propagation on 30M is as good as what they are hearing. From my QTH, which is DO70QK , N9PUZ is 1668km (1000 miles) away and KF4IN is 3197km (1900 miles) away. Both stations are almost on the same bearing from me (approx 130deg) Most days, N9PUZ is able to hear me from about 1300Z to 0400/0500Z, and posts my call automatically . even when the band appears to be completely dead in the evenings, the N9 station usually posts my call after the first try. KF4IN will post calls from me at different times during the day mainly from 1600z to 2200z. I have not shown up on the VK station. It would be interesting to see a little more activity on 30M in the evenings to see what the propagation really does. The 30M spotting page can be found at http://www.projects http://www.projectsandparts.com/30m/ andparts.com/30m/ John VE5MU _ No viruses found in this incoming message Scanned by iolo AntiVirus 1.5.1.4 http://www.iolo.com http://www.iolo.com/iav/iavpop3 ___ No viruses found in this outgoing message Scanned by iolo AntiVirus 1.5.1.4 http://www.iolo.com
[digitalradio] Ale Sounding: What is it and how does it work?
Chris , ZL1BOE you will be told by others that ALE is widely used to set up QSO's and QSY's using the one line message ability . You will also be told that it is used widely for keyboard to keyboard QSO's and that there are thousands of Hams using ALE ( last figure I heard was 6000) . These are folks who are using PCALE, who have aggressively set aside frequencies for ALE use in all bands, and are promoting ALE as the answer to emergency communications. Granted, PCALE, in its MARS form may be a great piece of software to pass messages from overseas but that ability is certainly not evident on the ham bands. The reality is that there are likely under 50 hams active with PCALE worldwide, those using PCALE spend most of the time sounding , with little , if any message traffic passed, and no QSO's. PCALE does not work very well into the noise, and is certainly not user friendly when setting up a rig and computer to run the program. Beyond using the sounding function there appears not to be much interest in running nets, or exploring emergency communications aspect of PCALE. ALE400 (multiPSK) might be closer to your needs since it is narrow band and works well into the noise. It can be readily used for soundings, file transfer, and is a pleasure to use for digital QSO's, keyboard to keyboard. The author is constantly working on the software, and appears to be moving closer to the Holy Grail of being able to pass messages and files from HF to the internet. It is simple to install, simple to use, (although the screen can be a little overwhelming at first) .There is a plan afoot which would see some extensive cross Canada testing of this mode to determine it's suitability for emergency communications. There are some other software out there to look at. NBEMS has promise, but , since it uses BPSK for the most part, suffers from multipath flutter and other ozone maladies. The authors state that it's intention was to run over VHF/UHF, and , while I haven't tried it, would probably work very well. This software is also under active development so will be interesting to see what other capabilities it will have. RFSM8000 gets very little mention on these reflectors, since hams in the USA cannot exceed 300baud speed. Dimitry and his team have posted the latest version which looks interesting , but haven't tried it, but is something we can run here in Canada on most bands except 30m.( bandwidth issues rather than speed) It apparently has the ability to pass traffic to and from the internet from HF, using a sound card modem. So much software, so little time 73's John VE5MU
[digitalradio] The cat's meow of JT65A spots.
Thanks to a post by K7EK on the Multipsk reflector, I just discovered a great resource for JT65A operators and thos interested in propagation data.Check http://jt65.w6cqz.org , maybe everyone already knows this site except me! The site has reverse beacons that automatically post JT65A spots to the website. See below... Tailor made for an old SWL like me, reception reporting without a lot of work to do. Andy K3UK Reception Reports K3UK (fn02hk) Heard N9DSJ(EN52) on 7075.98 KHz -13dB at 03:30Z using JT65A VE3CDX/W7/RB [DM26ic] Heard N9DSJ(EN52) on 7075.98 KHz -11dB at 03:30Z using JT65A SYSTEM: As of 2008-01-11 03:30 UTC reception reports database contains 237661 entries with 2304 unique callsigns. VE3CDX/W7/RB [DM26ic] Heard N9DSJ(EN52) on 7075.98 KHz -11dB at 03:28Z using JT65A W6CQZ/RB [CM87us] Heard N9DSJ(EN52) on 7075.99 KHz -18dB at 03:28Z using JT65A W6CQZ/RB [CM87us] Heard WA5DJJ(DM62) on 7075.39 KHz -7dB at 03:25Z using JT65A K3UK (fn02hk) Heard WA5DJJ(DM62) on 7075.39 KHz -15dB at 03:23Z using JT65A W6CQZ/RB [CM87us] Heard WA5DJJ(DM62) on 7075.39 KHz -11dB at 03:23Z using JT65A K3UK (fn02hk) Heard WA5DJJ(DM62) on 7076.00 KHz -11dB at 03:21Z using JT65A W6CQZ/RB [CM87us] Heard WA5DJJ(DM62) on 7076.00 KHz -2dB at 03:21Z using JT65A N9DSJ/RB [EN52ti] Heard W6CQZ on 7076.02 KHz -17dB at 03:20Z using JT65A K3UK (fn02hk) Heard W6CQZ on 7076.00 KHz -12dB at 03:20Z using JT65A N9DSJ/RB [EN52ti] Heard W6CQZ on 7076.02 KHz -18dB at 03:18Z using JT65A K3UK (fn02hk) Heard W6CQZ on 7076.00 KHz -9dB at 03:18Z using JT65A K3UK (fn02hk) Heard WA5DJJ on 7076.00 KHz -11dB at 03:17Z using JT65A W6CQZ/RB [CM87us] Heard WA5DJJ on 7076.00 KHz -7dB at 03:17Z using JT65A K3UK (fn02hk) Heard W6CQZ on 7076.00 KHz -7dB at 03:16Z using JT65A N9DSJ/RB [EN52ti] Heard W6CQZ on 7076.02 KHz -17dB at 03:16Z using JT65A -- Andy K3UK www.obriensweb.com (QSL via N2RJ)
RE: [digitalradio] Emergency agencies/ ham equipment/ hams in emcomm
I fully concur with Rick's comments. I find Bonnie's responses very off-putting with respect to trying ALE. The same can be said for Winlink 2000 even though I run a Telpac node. Rud Merriam K5RUD ARES AEC Montgomery County, TX http://TheHamNetwork.net -Original Message- From: digitalradio@yahoogroups.com [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Rick Sent: Thursday, January 10, 2008 7:46 PM To: digitalradio@yahoogroups.com Subject: Re: [digitalradio] Emergency agencies/ ham equipment/ hams in emcomm Alan, However, if you folks continue to attack your friends, you won't have many left! You can claim that only anti-digital hams are on QRZ, but more likely you will find that QRZ is the true democratic melting pot of contemporary viewpoints. You may not like what most hams are thinking but they reflect the overwhelming majority view. 73, Rick, KV9U
[digitalradio] SW Ohio Digital Symposium, Saturday, 1/12
http://www.swohdigi.org/ Twenty Second Annual Southwest Ohio Digital Symposium Saturday 12 January 2008 8:00 a.m. - 4:30 p.m. Planning is underway for the 22nd annual SW Ohio Digital Symposium to be held from approximfrom 8 AM to approximately 4:30 PM EST, Saturday, January 12, 2008 in Thesken Hall, on the Middletown Campus of Miami University, Middletown, Ohio. If you have a particular subject of interest which you'd like to present, or know of someone who is qualified to present, please contact, Jay Slough, K4ZLE k4zle at embarqmail dot com. The 2008 program is being beaten into shape, and promises to be a good one. Times aren't fixed yet, but list in probable order of presentation is below TIMES Welcome and Introduction - Jay, K4ZLE and Carl, K8CM to Digital Communications Overview - Tom Holmes, N8ZM be VOA Moonbounce Project Update - Mike Murphy, KA8ABR determined Design Manufacturing in the Internet Age, LP-100 - Digital Vector Wattmeter: A Case Study - Larry Phipps, N8LP Modern PC CAD Techniques - Bill Pollack, N0CALL ARRL update - Joe Phillips, K8QOE Jim Weaver, K8JE Lunch AmSat Update - Gerd Schrick, WB8IFM and Steve Coy,K8UD EME using WSJT cluster of programs - Tom Lubbers, K8TL PSK-Mail - Bill Kelsey, N8ET Prize Drawing, Housekeeping and Farewell There is no charge for attending the symposium. A box lunch will be available on site. Updates to the program will be posted here on the website, so please check in from time to time. For further information please contact We will have a demonstration room for items on the program, plus any items which you'd like to display. We'd like, in particular, and specialty APRS stations, a working PSK-31 station, and any other systems which you've found useful. For reference purposes, the program from last year's event is listed below. . Bring your portable or semi-portable digital station! We'd like to have as many types of stations, and as many demos as possible We'll have a secured room, open during the registration and lunch period, for demos. If you have an interest in CW, RTTY, Packet Radio, AMTOR, D-Star, etc., please plan to join us. Send comments to: Jay Slough, K4ZLE k4zle at embarqmail dot com Be a better friend, newshound, and know-it-all with Yahoo! Mobile. Try it now. http://mobile.yahoo.com/;_ylt=Ahu06i62sR8HDtDypao8Wcj9tAcJ
