SignaLink Radio Interface

I have heard much about the SignaLink radio interface that I finally had to buy one. It looks like a very good quality piece of equipment. I have not tried it yet. but soon! I am going to connect it to my DX-70T and see how it performs. I have been busy in life and also busy trying to upgrade my shack. I have added some new things for the digital world and will be posting them here soon.

www.tigertronics.com

Broadband Hamnet 1.0.1 for Ubiquiti Released

Broadband Hamnet 1.0.1 for Ubiquiti Released today! Great news for the project! A new mile stone! Now I need to get a cou[le of the devices and try it out. If you have already let me know what you think.


http://www.broadband-hamnet.org/documentation/186-ubnt-fw-release-101

**BBHN Support for Ubiquiti Devices Nears Release**

Here is some great news for HSMM. Ubiquiti Devices would be a huge step forward for the project. I can not wait to load mine up! Check it out !



http://www.broadband-hamnet.org/documentation

New Broadband-Hamnet Firmware Released !

Version 1.0.0 of the newly-named Broadband Hamnet firmware is now available for download. This is great news! The project took another giant leap! I can not wait to try this new version, I will now be able to maybe see it work with my bullet. These guys have been working hard to improve and enable cross platform capabilities, Thanks to all involved with the project. I will get some nodes up and running and report back. Check it out!

hsmm-mesh.org

Broadband-Hamnet™ wins International Association of Emergency Managers Awards

Broadband-Hamnet™ wins International Association of Emergency Managers Awards! Broadband-Hamnet is formally HSMM-Mesh. This is a very good recognition of all the hard work these guys have done! I know there is a lot more in store for the future, Congratulations Broadband-Hamnet™ and all that made it possible!

See it here-

http://www.iaem.com/documents/IAEM-Global-Awards-News-Release-2013.pdf

Rascal interface for the collection

I went to a Hamfest just this last weekend and picked up some interesting items. I found a Rascal interface among all the treasures. I am always on the look out for packet and sound card interfaces to add to my collection or to help promote the digital world. The unit was in great shape, but still used for a lot less money. It is a nice small design that is well built. It came with the right connectors for my FT-767GX so I will be able to use it without any problems. I will test this very soon, I am in the process of finishing a new shack. Updates later.


Rascal Interface

cubieboard a neat little computer

Here is an interesting new sub $100 ARM board. I may have to order one to play with! It has many good features, the one I like is that it can run the full Ubuntu desktop.

From their Web site:

The features of the cubieboard:

    1G ARM cortex-A8 processor, NEON, VFPv3, 256KB L2 cache
    Mali400, OpenGL ES GPU
    512M/1GB DDR3
    HDMI 1080p Output
    100M Ethernet
    4GB Nand Flash
    2 USB Host, 1 MMC slot, 1 SATA, 1 ir
    96 extend pin including i2c, spi, lvds, sensors, ..
    Running Android, Ubuntu and other Linux distributions

There is a nice simple case for the board. Look here  http://cubieboard.org/2012/09/10/a-simple-case/

http://cubieboard.org/

Yaesu FT-1D The New Digital 2 meter/440 HT

Here is the latest entry into the digital radio field. It looks like an interesting radio, but it looks like another problem with interoperability. I hope maybe some smart Hams will figure out a way to make all the different modes work together. It would be nice if we could have a upgradeable mode that we could build upon and have available for all brands of radio. I am glad another manufacture is moving forward with new radios for Amateur Radio, this does help the hobby. I still would like to see something from the open source community. On a side note the camera microphone could have some use with HSMM.

Check it out here: http://www.universal-radio.com/catalog/ht/0111.html


Features

• 5 watts on Both 2m/440
• Image Transmit (QVGA 320 × 240)
• Integrated GPS
• CTCSS/DCS Encode & Decode
• Weather Receiving with Weather Alert
• Analog and Digital
• Wide-band Receive 
• Optional Camera Microphone

ARRL and TAPR 2011 DCC - Digital Modes for Catastrophic Communications

Here is a good vidieo from the ARRL and TAPR 2011 Digital Communications Conference - Digital Modes for Catastrophic Communications. This video was presented by the ARVN. There were a lot of great points for further discussions. I think we as a group should move forward with digital, both for the hobby and for EmComm. What do you think?





http://arvideonews.com/dcc2011/2011_DCC_Catastrophic_Communications.html

FLMSG training video

Here is a very good training video for FLmsg. This should clear up any problems with using it. The video is from Dave, KB3FXI and Harry, W3YJ. They did a very good job! Check out their site and this video.





www.panbems.org

SCS: New Pactor 4 Modem

SCS has posted a new modem for Pactor 4.  The P4dragon DR-7800 is the latest and in the line of pactor modems. This one the say has been redesigned with a fast quad-core DSP allowing high data rates. I am still a fan of software based digital modes like Winmore. It is nice to see advances in communications. Check it out and let me know what you think.

English translation:

http://tinyurl.com/Pactor4SCS

For those that speak German:

http://www.pactor4.com/SCS_DRAGON_DE/Home.html


 

DDP an Alternative Protocol for Packet Radio

Danny Knaggs, 2E0DPK is developing a new free Ham protocol. DDP, Danny's Digital Packet, is a new Alternative Protocol for Packet Radio. It works with FLDigi or D-STAR DV. What is different is that the packets are sent and recieved in plain text on the waterfall. This is a very interesting development that will work with several operating systems. This is still Beta, so may the testing begin.



http://code.google.com/p/ddp/

Keep your Computer Clock Accurate for the Digital Modes

There is a need to keep your computer clock accurate for some of the digital modes. There are several ways hams have been trying do do this ands some have become outmoded with the newer Windows operating systems.  Meinberg NTP for Windows is the way to go. It is free and it is also the "official"  Network Time Protocol client software. The only downside to ham software needing this level of accurace is that it probably would not be a good mode in an emergency. There would be no to keep the clocks that accurate without using a GPS signal or something else. How many Hams would be prepared for that?  Julian, G4ILO has a good write up about this on his Blog. Check it out and see if you can keep up with time.



http://www.meinberg.de/english/sw/ntp.htm#ntp_nt_stable

http://blog.g4ilo.com/2011/04/time-to-ditch-dimension-4.html

WinDRM Digital Voice

WinDRM is a sound card program for digital voice and sending pictures. The software uses DRM, Digital Radio Mondiale, modified by Cesco, HB9TLK, for Ham radio. The minimum requirement is a 1 GHz computer running Windows 2000 or higher and one or two sound cards. It is recommended to use two sound cards with digital voice, as cheap as a usb sound card is, it should not be a problem to run two. DRM is open source software, and I do like open source! I have been playing with the software and when time permits I will try to use on the air. There is very good instructions on Jason, N1SU, site. If you have used this software, let me know what you think about it.

http://n1su.com/windrm/download.html

http://n1su.com/windrm/WinDRM_QuickSetupV1r1.pdf

Ham Radio and the Future

     I have been hearing a some complaining from some hams that have a problem with using the Internet to link stations. I have also had several complain about why do we need digital modes we have CW and thats all we need. I would prefer to have a backup link using RF, but that is not always possible when you are first setting up packet/Winlink nodes. The infrastructure is just not there and will take some time to build it. So by using the Internet to link nodes helps get remote nodes connected and to show others that the system does work. Then as more see the system as being viable, we can add more stations and also the RF backbone. In the end the Internet would not be needed to use the system. I also think CW is a great and needed mode but I wonder what ever happened to the real hams that used a spark to send his traffic?

     I am not putting down any CW operators, but some of the attitudes towards anything new is not helping the hobby. This hobby has many different things to experiment with, from CW, AM, SSB, Digital, Satellites and many others. We need to have an attitude for the hobby of "That mode does not interest me, but I am glad you are advancing the Radio Arts." If we all looked at it this way maybe we could advance the Radio Art. We need to promote all modes in the hobby and computers are here to stay. Also, a future Ham only Mesh Network needs to move forward. Thanks for bearing with my rambling rant on this subject. 73

New release of JT65-HF

W6CQZ has a new release out for JT65-HF for terrestrial use. JT65-HF 1.0.7 is the latest version. This mode is an adaptation of the JT64A protocol. I have not tried this mode yet, but it looks very interesting. Check it out:



http://sourceforge.net/projects/jt65-hf/files/

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

NBEMS/FLDIGI Sound Card Calibration

Make sure your sound card is calibrated for your FLDIGI software using CheckSR.exe. Olivia and MT63 will really benefit with this calibration. CheckSR.exe comes free with MixW software. To get the software without MixW and some good instructions, go to the Western PA Amateur Radio EmComm Digi Net Website Click Here. These guys did a good job with their website with NBEMS and FLdigi.



http://mixw.net/

http://www.pa-sitrep.com/NBEMS/fldigi_calibration.htm

New GNU Codec2

David Rowe, VK5DGR has released Codec2 V0.1 alpha for communication quality speech. This has been released under the GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL), which makes it open source. This is what Ham Radio is about, not the proprietary stuff that is out there. Because D-Star is proprietary it is not compatable with Codec2. Check it out for more detailed information. I think we are heading in the right direction with this. This should lead to a less expensive way for digital voice.

Rowetel.com/blog

New version of Airlink Express v.2.1.5.378

There has been a new version of Airlink Express v.2.1.5.378 released. It now includes among other enhancements PSKReporter, Automatic Propagation Reporter, and ARQ, Automatic Repeat Request, for sending and receiving of text and binary files. I will have to test this and see if it may work better for sending ARQ messages than some other software does.



http://www.airlinkexpress.org/index.html