UI-Webserver

1/29/11 Update - the UI-View maps quit working and thus the Webserver display. A simple update and refocus of the _PA7RHM map server using the updater was all that was necessary to fix it. We still need a source of local or cached maps but this keeps things going. BV

This is an update of a preliminary post on using UI-Webserver and the start of more detailed information describing how to use UI-Webserver, a component of the UI-View APRS package. For now, my notes are preserved on the NWAPRS WikiDot Wiki.

I'd post the link to the UI-Webserver here but I'm not quite ready to advertise that little web server up to the wilds of the World Wide Web.

Next project - learn how to use the Object editor to share the UI-Webserver URL on the APRS system with a slight obfuscation so the links are not plain text and thus easily open to everybody and everybot.

7/25/2011 - turn on the UI-Webserver. Running UI-View32 - File menu, click "UI-Webserver". Check the settings to make sure it's running on port 7373. It doesn't have to be 7373 but that's a convention a few of us are using and it's working well.

10/15/2011 - Added a live, even if captured, map to the main page to display on the web what the UI-View program is seeing.

10/16/2011 - Added the time stamp to the captured image. It was a simple matter of adding an additional event to the scheduler to apply the time stamp to each captured image. The help for for the captioner had the specific details needed.

Tracking the Home Station

Yes - there are uses for a GPS on the home packet radio station.... Least of which is tracking the house after an earthquake.

(lots to be added)

GPS 353 from Amazon.

Tried at Brunch. Bob did it first and everything worked fine on his laptop and my little white ASUS netbook.

Thanks to Bob/K7OFT for the reference to Visual GPS - it's a handy too.

Put on KVID - the packet machine.

Hard time getting lock in the window. Still need to find a better location for it.

(more to be added)

Still cannot get XPORT working. My goal is to get the GPS data from the USB Prolific device on Com port 19 and share that on, at least, COM ports 7 and 8. Currently XPORT reads the GPS just fine but it thinks ports 7 and 8 are in use. I've tried several techniques to clear up those ports but haven't had any success yet.

* http://www.modemsite.com/56k/xptip.asp

* http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/80943-45-remove-ports

I'll try later with a safe boot and remove the extra devices. For now I'm running with UI-View directly reading the GPS on Com 7. The Red Cross hairs are showing on the map. I've see to see how the time update function works. I manually added 8 hours delta from GMZ to PST and will have to change it if it's not correct.

(more soon)

New Project Starting - Portable Server with Packet

I've long sought the practical portal group server with Ham Radio Packet and Wifi access for the various brunches and ham fest meetings.   The plan and tasks for Revision A (or W?) of the server have been assigned a list in the Remember The Milk task tool.   Stay tuned to this blog page for updates and details.

Bill

Back to the APRSHOG - Out with the moving, in with the objects.

Hard to believe it was back in August that I started putting in special handling for Moving packets which I didn't get finished.  So the links have been broken for about three months - and nobody noticed.  Or cared enough to mention it.   Oh well - I'm the biggest user and I didn't feel the need to get it fixed.

So now the listing of locally heard and archived moving packets is back onto the backlog and we're using the link to findu.com again.

I did finally spend the tomato it took to add a new report listing only the Objects processed.  That should be useful showing what's being announced in the area.   It also provided a template that will make it very easy to add a dedicated page for Weather reports.

More very soon now....

73
Bill - WA7NWP

Portable Server Progress

A little white netbook is getting more and more functionality as a portable, in a big plastic box -- take it and go, portable radio server. While the eventual setup will be a true NIX server of some sort, this is a Windows XP system. Much functionality is coming from the UI-View addons. Tonight I added the pa7rhm map server. The Tiny Web Pages will, no doubt, be added in the near future.

9600 Baud Packet Radio - some of the theory....

Some 9600 baud packet radio theory:

There are a couple of things you need to look out for when attempting to use a radio for 9600 bps. First with AC vs DC coupling, you can get yourself into trouble both ways. With AC coupling, you have to make sure that the transient across the coupling capacitor(s) dies out before the preamble is done and the receive modem has locked up. If not as the coupling capacitors charge or discharge on transmitter turn on, you will be pulled off frequency. This is most often the reason that people have to use a wide band receive filter. The transmitter slops around due to the charging or discharging of the coupling caps. This occurs on both the receiver and transmitter side. It can cause weird stuff like the link working only in one direction.

If you use full DC coupling for both Tx and Rx, then you have to make sure that the DC levels are set and stable. Any DC level change and you will see this as a frequency offset. Any DC drift will show up as a frequency drift.

The proper solution is to put something along the lines of a DC restorer circuit in the Tx an Rx paths, or better yet throw away the Tx modulator and use and IQ modulator directly at RF or IF. For the receive a DC tracking and restore circuit works well. I know of no 9600 modems that do this in the amateur world. But I am dated for 9600. The only modem that was used in the amateur world that did that right was the WA4DSY 56K modem.

Another thing you should do is run a couple of 9600 radios back to back on the bench. With a good S/N you should get zero errors! If you get any, you have a problem in the system. With a good link with no multipath, your bit error ratio (BER) should be way better than 10e-06. That means if you do 100 pings of 1K packets, you should have no errors, that is approximately 10e06 bits sent. If you have any errors you are deluding yourself that things are working, they will not get better when you are on the air over a marginal link, only worse.

If you choose to use TCP/IP via AX.25 UI frames (standard stuff in NOS or Linux), if you don't have a BER better than 10e-06, your link will stall and die when you try to run any TCP services on it. TCP will will not see the ACK and retransmit, it will also back off it's transmission timer assuming that the link is congested. It has no knowledge of the radio link quality. TCP will continue to back off until the link essentially stalls. You either need a very good link or build a protocol around the radio link so that TCP doesn't do the retransmissions, the radio link protocol does.

Anyway, just my $0.02 worth.

Dennis, AC7FT.

APRSHOG Active Display

Who's active on APRS in the area right now? The Active page of the APRSHOG program provides a snapshot into local activiy.