Configuring Data Radios for 9600 baud

See the wiki:  (link coming soon)

Next Generation Unconnected Amateur Experimental Packet System

APRS is 20 years old and still using 25 year old technology.   What can we do different:

• Remove the scheme of hard coded paths and hops like WIDE1-1.  Instead go to a purpose coded system or better yet - just eliminate it all together.  Let the network nodes, which we used to call digipeaters, do it.   They're better, smarter and cheaper.
• These network nodes will tell the clients how to address their packets.  The system will be automatically configuring.
• Servers, and even clients, can record ALL the audio heard on the channel.  It's a minimal amount of data by todays standards.   A user on the web should be able to click on a callsign and packet and hear just how it sounds.
• Trackers (and even home stations) will take a web cam snapshot associated with every position transmission.  These will be web uploaded when bandwidth allows.  Possibly it would be a 360 degree panorama.
• No data will be directly injected into the IS infrastructure.  Only what's heard on the RF.  All stations gating from RF to IS will be keyed with a secure certificate that's created either locally or at trusted sources such as ARRL's LOTW.
• Stations may have an alternate frequency agile RF receiver such as one of the RT802 dongles.  This will allow automatic Direction Finding of on the air signals when queried by local clients.
• much more to come

AP510 Tracker

Better all the time.   Radio, GPS, TNC, memory, thermometer, etc etc.   All for around $100 with Amazon Prime shipping.

Perhaps this will be the Ham Radio side of the Montana Lander...


2015-2-7  AP510 arrived at Zeus.  Downloaded files from the Yahoo group.  Watched helpful 9 minute video by Eric/KI4xxx - on how to configure hardware and software.
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Alternate download location for AP510 files

2015-2-8 Watched video again.  First pass at configuration.  Fortunately there were no issue on DLL's or serial drivers with my dated Vista laptop.

Visited 8GNJ - helped him set up his AP510.  His went fine - mine started acting weird.

Reinstalled Firmware in mine.  Now it's happy and acting normally.

2015-2-9 It's running.  Light turned solid blue for the first time while sitting on the car's dash.  Apparently that indicates GPS lock.   Note to self.  Beacons and beeps every 15 seconds is a bit much.  Reconfigure tonight to turn off beep and set transmission to nice sane 2 minutes.

2015-2-10  Reconfigured.  Changed SSID from -4 to -5 to be in sync with Herb.  The -5 is for 510..  Set beacon time to 125 seconds.  Turned off the beep.   Next time - turn off MIC-E to see what it looks like.  MIC-E is much shorter which is a good thing but we're curious how the packets are going to look.

All the Audio

We have big CPU's and bigger hard disks.  There's no reason today to not record (compressed) ALL the audio from a data channel.  In particular - APRS - with its wide mix of stations and applications.

Here's a twist on the web pages - instead of "Map Me" how about - play back what my packets sound.

APRSTT - Touch Tones

Using touch tones to do APRS:

• http://www.aprs.org/aprstt.html
• http://www.aprs.org/aprstt/aprstt-v.txt - the spec
• https://www.tapr.org/pdf/DCC2010-APRSSpeak-KA2UPW.pdf - implementation
• http://info.aprs.net/index.php?title=APRStt - the APRS wiki

Touch tones?   Why not use voice input?  As long as a raspberry pi has Internet access to Google, it should be fairly straight forward to replace the touch touch responses with speech commands.

http://www.raspberrypi.org/meet-jasper-open-source-voice-computing/

TAPR could....

TAPR already provides:

• File repository archives
• EMail List reflectors - https://www.tapr.org/mailman/listinfo

We Hams badly need, and TAPR could extend their services to provide....

• Wordpress web sites
• Wiki  (probably mediaWiki)
• Computer Discussion Forums
• Source Control project repository.  Similar to GitHug
• Issue Tracking
• Project Planning

Much knowledge and history is being lost as independently hosted sites disappear.

Rather Fight Than Switch - OpenWrt Mesh versions

> I am debricking another router so I can have 3 then I will switch.

Don't switch!

You are running OpenWRT...

You have two working nodes.

Add a third - then you'll have a working mesh.

Install NGIRC on one of the  nodes - WRT54GS with 8 MB would be best if you have one.   It's a well documented process on the HSMM site.

The BBHN GUI is clean and easy - it's a good way to start if you're not used to Linux command line routing and firewall operations.   If you dream in firewall commands - then go for the pure OpenWRT.

With 3 working mesh nodes you'll be able to find a fourth box, install the CHANGEME build and learn how to get it working.   It's way easier to add a new setup to a working system then to try doing everything cold from scratch.

Ok - having said all these nice things about the BBHN GUI - it's also time we move beyond it.  With all the recent activities they're trying to bring the same custom GUI to all configurations and essentially not supporting anything that's not using the GUI.   They've jumped the shark with this one.   The future is pure OpenWrt, maybe Luci, maybe a Ham-Mesh-Luci add-on.   Nobody can hope to keep up with a custom interface on top of all the cool new hardware that's coming.  (It's also important to realize that 'mesh' has a small place in the overall scheme of Networking - to put everything on the Mesh is to throw away much power and functionality.)

Personally I'm going to learn the command line and master the beast - but I'll still keep my old GUI-Mesh boxes around for compatibility checking and loaning out to folks getting started.

Onward...

73
Bill, WA7NWP