Happy New Year!

I would like to wish everyone a Happy New Year!

I think 2011 will be a better year. It looks like more and more Hams are looking into digital. I have already been asked to make several presentations ant various clubs in the area. The more we talk and show the better it gets! Winlink and HSMM are still moving forward and expanding. It should be a great year. Thanks to all that have read my Blog, come back next year for more!

A Ham Radio Cellphone Network

N9XLC has a very interesting post about cellphones. His thoughts are leanning towards a Ham Cellphone Network. I find this very interesting because it could tie into HSMM-Mesh and give us Hams another way to communicate. Check out his blog and the sites he recommends. This will also be an area I will have to look into more.

http://n9xlc.blogspot.com/2010/10/ham-radio-cellphone-network.html

Wi-Fi scanner software, inSSIDer

 I needed a Wi-Fi tool to help with a site survy for the HSMM-Mesh Nodes and my laptop runs Vista, so Netstumbler would not work. MetaGeek has created a replacement for Netstumbler. Open-source Wi-Fi scanner software, inSSIDer, actually works with Windows Vista, Windows 7, and 64-bit PCs. This is also free software that will work with current generations of  Windows operating systems. I really like this software and find it easy to use.

From their site:

What's Unique about inSSIDer?

•Compatible with Windows XP, Vista and 7 (32 and 64-bit)
•Uses the Native Wi-Fi API and your current Wireless network card
•Sort results by Mac Address, SSID, Channel, RSSI and "Time Last Seen"
•Compatible with most GPS devices (NMEA v2.3 and higher)

How can inSSIDer help me?

•Inspect your WLAN and surrounding networks to troubleshoot competing access points
•Track the strength of received signal in dBm over time
•Filter access points in an easy-to-use format
•Highlight access points for areas with high Wi-Fi concentration
•Export Wi-Fi and GPS data to a KML file to view in Google Earth
•Filter through hundreds of scanned access points

Check it out and download here:

http://www.metageek.net/products/inssider

New Sound Card Mode V4

V4 is a sound card digital protocol optimized for keyboard operation over HF. It uses 4FSK modulation and strong Viterbi FEC encoding for robustness even in weak signal or poor propagation conditions. V4 can be implemented on most computers using standard PC sound cards with radio interfaces. It is in Alpha testing but looks like a good start. This mode may be a good one for NVIS for digital nets. Watch this one for a good future.

The Alpha version of the software can be downloaded from the files section of the V4 Protocol Yahoo Group.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/V4Protocol/
 
V4 Protocol and V4 Chat document
http://www.winlink.org/webfm_send/169

HSMM-Mesh Up and Running

I now have two WRT54g routers running HSMM-Mesh. The next step is to get them configured properly and in their boxes. I will have these within about 6 city blocks of each other when they are mounted. The testing has begun.



www.hsmm-mesh.org/