Memories from a box

I had a flashback in time last night when I took the trash to the curb. My wife had been in the attic and emptied an old box and then set the box out for me to get rid of. This box was from the first PC computer I ever bought that ran Windows. I bought this computer when I was stationed in Fulda Germany in the early 90's. What is hard to believe is that it has been nearly 20 years ago and only seems like it was just yesterday! Wow does time fly! But of course if I stop and think about it my kids have kids now so I guess I qualify as an old timer. This computer was the fastest one I ever had, it had to of had lightning in it!

AST Advantage! Plus
486DX/33 Model 348
-340 MB Hard Drive - 4 MB RAM
-1.2MB and 1.44MB Floppy Disk Drives
-Local Bus VGA 1 MB Memory
-AST Enhanced Keyboard - AST Two-Button Mouse
-Lotus 1-2-3 for Windows and Ami Pro
-Prodigy - American OnLine
-Fax Modem - WinFax

This is the computer that got me hooked to Windows, of course it was a different animal back then. Only lately have I veered away and started using Linux. What memories a box will bring to you.

GEMLINK Microwave Equipment

I have acquired a lot of Gemlink microwave equipment. I have many, many different parts and a lot of the dish receiver/transmitter. These are all on 23Ghz commercial band, so I think they should be able to be tuned to the Ham bands. I will be posting more about this stuff as I go through it. I am looking for any information on this equipment and anyone that has worked with any of this system. I have a LSD-122A bi-directional unit for data and voice and one I think was used for one way video. Here are a couple of pictures:

Truck load of Microwave Equipment

I just picked up a Truck load of early microwave equipment and books along with some other goodies. The Ham I got these from was not active any more and needed to clean out his shack to move into a smaller home. He was an early pioneer in microwave technology with General Electric. I have only started to look through this equipment and WOW! I have a lot of stuff I will have to research. I have what looks like a working feed horn Display from 1961. I also have a lot and mean a lot of Gemlink equipment. This will be interesting to find out if it can be used on the Ham 24 GHz band. More about this later, for now take a look at these pictures.

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

BPQ32 AXTCP Works fine

Here in Kentucky we have had to use something to connect the EOC's with BBS traffic. In the EOC's we could not open ports. We do not have an RF backbone setup yet(this is the next step in the list). We used AXTCP to connect the Owensboro EOC to my node in Henderson and it worked great! Thanks John! This works fine for the BBS and Chat. This will let us get the nodes in the EOC's while we work on building the rest of the network for the backbone. I will be setting up in February the Henderson EOC and it will be setup with a 440 9.6k port for the backbone. We will start with 440 but I would like to use another frequency but we have to start somewhere. Again, I have to say BPQ32 is the software for any serious node work.

Software Based PBX for Windows Based Systems

3CX Phone System is a free Voip PBX / SIP server software for Windows. This is an iteresting piece of software that may have some possibilites for using with a HSMM mesh system. I have not tried it yet but have been looking into it and so far have many thoughts about testing it on my small mesh network. It uses popular IP Phones such as Polycom, Snom, Cisco & others or Softphones. I like what i have seen with the documintation on their softphone and like the posibilites with it. It also runs on Microsoft Windows so no need to learn Linux if you did not want to. The software is a full edition is a fully functional product. To see which Windows systems are supported go here: http://www.3cx.com/blog/docs/supported-windows-versions This could be very usefull with HSMM, if anyone has tried it let me know what you think. Check out these other links for more info:


http://www.3cx.com/products/products-info.html
http://www.3cx.com/phone-system/3CXPhoneSystem_brochure.pdf
http://www.3cx.com/VOIP/voip-phone.html
http://www.3cx.com/forums/

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/

Amateur Radio Codec2 Video

Here is a nice video with Paul ZL3IN and Bruce Robertson VE9QRP have a nice conversation using codec2. This is what I think Amateur radio is all about. Open source and moving in the direction we need. Check it out and see what you think. I think this a better route than D-Star. I have never embraced D-Star as a true Amateur Radio mode. Should I look into it more or stand my ground on D-Star. Watch the video and then let me know.







 
Codec2 Yahoo Group
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Codec_2/

The Codec2 Project
http://codec2.org/

BPQ32 Now With Winlink2000 CMS Telnet Capabilities

I have been playing with BPQ32 for some time and have really liked it so far. Now it even surpasses all my expectations, I am not sure how John Wiseman GM8BPQ/G8BPQ does it, but he does! This new version includes CMS telnet access via the BPQ32 program. There is no need to run separate Winlink software to run a RMS Node. I have been testing this new configuration and have had no problems yet. It is also easier to setup than it ever has been. This software does not need the NET 3.5 that the RMS program needs, thus limiting you to Windows XP or newer. BPQ32 should be able to run on Windows 2000. I have not tested it yet but am planning on testing it on a 2000 machine in the near future. There is also included reporting to the Winlink Packet Station Database. Now we only need one program to do most of the work. Check it out


http://groups.yahoo.com/group/BPQ32/
http://www.cantab.net/users/john.wiseman/Documents/TelnetServer.htm
http://www.cantab.net/users/john.wiseman/Documents/WL2KReporting.html

HSMM-Mesh Upgrade 0.4.1 Firmware

I have been playing with HSMM-Mesh and have upgraded to their newest firmware and find it operates wonderful! A news release from their site: http://hsmm-mesh.org/news.html

"The time has come for a firmware update. This is primarily a bug fix release. It is available as both a full firmware image (as it always has been) and also as a patch. This is the first time that a patch has been released, so this upgrade will be easier than in all prior releases.


This patch will require that the node be rebooted and that will happen automatically during the installation. To install it make sure your node has internet access and go to the Administration page, click Refresh in the Download Firmware section, select patch-0.4.1.tgz and click Download. That's it, in a few moments you will have new firmware!

Here is a summary of the updates:

- fixed the average signal strength reading
- fixed an olsr bug which caused it to crash
- fixed a DMZ mode configuration bug when the WAN was disabled
- improved the firewall handling when a DMZ server is used in NAT mode
- improved the calculation of the Previous Neighbors age
- do not display local network details to remote nodes

73
ad5oo"

The HSMM-Mesh Upgrade 0.4.1 Firmware has been real fun to play with. These guys are moving right along with the HSMM-Mesh firmware. I have three WRT54G routers setup and running. I have had one outside in a weatherproof box running since November using the 0.4.0 firmware. It has been down into the teens and I have had no problems yet. I will be field testing / demo the system in the spring. Go to their site and check it out.

http://hsmm-mesh.org/