Posted: 11/2/2012 5:29:59 AM EDT
|
I just found this while doing some research. Im still trying to get it configured but it is almost exactly what I was wanting to do!
http://code.google.com/p/ddp/ |
|
There isn't much packet besides APRS.
There is even less ddp type packet. The link above uses the sound card modes like psk and mfsk to transmit the packet layers. So instead of hearing the old dial up modem sound you hear the music of psk500r. So with hardly anyone else using it why is it so cool? First you dont need a TNC or any other peripherals besides a signal link or donner interface. Once that is setup you could build a off line internet. It wouldn't be DSL but it could allow for instant messaging, file transfers and even http web browsing. |
|
Quoted:
So this is a link layer to allow forwarding of standard tcp/ip traffic through a virtual serial device and transmit it using fldigi and traditional modulation schemes? I like it already   Someone else shares my excitement!
Just and idea, so no FCC laws What about making a bridge (I know thats not the right word) that ties a base station into a cable internet connection. No netflix but it would be able to send email without the need of special software and you could use your regular email client and address. Phurba- I have worked all day on getting soundmodem setup with xastir. I got it and now can do aprs with my wouxun. But what I like more about this method is with normal packet I can hear packets but can't always decode them. With psk and mfsk a computer can decode at a much lower threshold which im sure you are aware of. |
|
Quoted:
Some states like Indiana and Missouri have pretty robust packet systems that are running. Missouri even has multiple redundant 6 meter backbones. Florida has a statewide network called SEDAN (Southeastern Emergency Digital Association Networks). |
|
I never understood why that whole system fell apart. It was never any problem going keyboard to keyboard anywhere along the east coast. I know when APRS came along it had alot to do with pushing SEDAN to the side. I found it much more useful than APRS. Florida has taken EMCOMM by the horns and created some very useful software to use packet.
I don't see APRS very useful in terms of complete EMCOMM use. It is limited in the messaging capabilities. No standard message form matching. NTS. Ok off my soapbox. Quoted:
Quoted:
Some states like Indiana and Missouri have pretty robust packet systems that are running. Missouri even has multiple redundant 6 meter backbones. Florida has a statewide network called SEDAN (Southeastern Emergency Digital Association Networks). |
|
Quoted:
I never understood why that whole system fell apart. It was never any problem going keyboard to keyboard anywhere along the east coast. I know when APRS came along it had alot to do with pushing SEDAN to the side. I found it much more useful than APRS. Florida has taken EMCOMM by the horns and created some very useful software to use packet. I don't see APRS very useful in terms of complete EMCOMM use. It is limited in the messaging capabilities. No standard message form matching. NTS. Ok off my soapbox. Quoted:
Quoted:
Some states like Indiana and Missouri have pretty robust packet systems that are running. Missouri even has multiple redundant 6 meter backbones. Florida has a statewide network called SEDAN (Southeastern Emergency Digital Association Networks). If I could hazard a guess.. people got bored with packet. People stopped making new hardware. People are still using TNCs made in the 80s and 90s connected to serial ports. Not to mention packet is painfully slow. When I've tried to explain the concept of packet to people, they usually ask why you don't just use a cell phone with text messaging. The whole 'infrastructureless' argument doesn't really work since somebody has to keep the equipment running. |
|
The thing that keeps me glued to Ham radio is the technology of it all. Just as someone in the 50s could talk to someone across the world was cool, and in the 80s someone could send a file completely wireless was cool I think serving up a web page that list what lights are on in my house via Arduino over 440MHz is cool. Or being able to remotely download images from deer cameras around my county is cool.
Some people have different ideas of what cool is but mine is interfacing the technologies of today with radios. Did anyone see his DDV link? Its like a voip program inside his packet protocol that is transmitted via FLDIGI. |
|
Quoted:
I agree GCW. It's a fascinating hobby. It's an experimenters paradise and that's what creates the problem. We have too many options and no nation wide standardization when it comes to comes to EmComm. You are exactly right. My club is going digital but some want to do packet others APRS and some PSK. If our own club cant decide how can a state? |
|
I know that most recently SEDAN fell apart because it was mostly a one-man show and he got tired and quit along with pulling all of the equipment that he'd purchased himself (which as I understand was most of it). I don't know the level of use it had by "regular" hams but it was certainly used by EOCs and the Red Cross. Others have since stepped in to revamp the system and make it more robust.
|
|
Quoted:
The thing that keeps me glued to Ham radio is the technology of it all. Just as someone in the 50s could talk to someone across the world was cool, and in the 80s someone could send a file completely wireless was cool I think serving up a web page that list what lights are on in my house via Arduino over 440MHz is cool. Or being able to remotely download images from deer cameras around my county is cool. Some people have different ideas of what cool is but mine is interfacing the technologies of today with radios. Did anyone see his DDV link? Its like a voip program inside his packet protocol that is transmitted via FLDIGI. That's part of the problem. For the most part, ham tech is stuck in the 80s. 1200 baud is seriously uninpressive. So is 9600. It's cool that we have modes like Psk and wspr that will run well in poor conditions, but the throughput is so low the practicality is severely limited. |
|
IMO, the internet killed packet as we knew it. I was into it in the early 90's, but by 1998/9 it was almost extinct in my area. Not enoughh stations on anymore to make it worth while on VHF/UHF save for APRS. There is some activity on 20m though, an actual network "Net105". I have connected to some stations there and had some "mail" left in my TNC "inbox" recently.
But if 1200 baud is too slow..look out. HF is 300 baud. 
I need to get up to speed on the newer programs for packet. I'm old school and use a AEA PK232 TNC into a <gasp> serial port. 
|
|
I quit packet in the early 90's as it was ridiculously slow and limited.
I do run APRS as a tracker for events. I have switched to and am deploying HSMM nodes. Great throughput, range can e problematic at 2.4 Ghz, but the is the cool part, just add nodes to the mesh. Self configuring. |
|
Quoted:
I quit packet in the early 90's as it was ridiculously slow and limited. I do run APRS as a tracker for events. I have switched to and am deploying HSMM nodes. Great throughput, range can e problematic at 2.4 Ghz, but the is the cool part, just add nodes to the mesh. Self configuring. Isn't HSMM just running an access point with a callsign as the ESSID? |
|
No it is a lot more than that.
Rather and try to describe it my self (I'm a noob) here is a blurb from the web site: HSMM-MESH™ is a high speed, self discovering, self configuring, fault tolerant, wireless computer network that can run for days from a fully charged car battery, or indefinitely with the addition of a modest solar array or other supplemental power source. The focus is on emergency communications. A wireless router is used to host the software and provide radio communication. The software provides routing and a fault tolerant mesh. Users are reporting a range of 10 miles or more using stock power and gain antennas if you have true line of sight. I'm not an expert, but have just setup three nodes for experimenting. I'm experimenting with running web services, VOIP and email. On each node, I'm running one directional antenna and one omni antenna and hope to test range very soon. Take a look at this site. There is a lot of information there. |
|
Quoted:
Quoted:
I quit packet in the early 90's as it was ridiculously slow and limited. I do run APRS as a tracker for events. I have switched to and am deploying HSMM nodes. Great throughput, range can e problematic at 2.4 Ghz, but the is the cool part, just add nodes to the mesh. Self configuring. Isn't HSMM just running an access point with a callsign as the ESSID? Its just like a repeater it DD-wrt. Each router is configured with an essid of urcall-1,2,3,etc then they look for HSMM-mesh to conect to. Its a neat system and I have 3 wrt-54's and a Buffalo that I plan on playing with. Range is a problem and so is Shannon's law. There are some that bring up part acceptance and what not, I hear about it but don't really read into it. The biggest thing about their system is that its open and can not be secured, due to being amateur radio. |
|
Quoted:
Gave old school packet a whirl a couple years ago. Got a 20 year old TNC at a hamfest, a recycled FT-1900, a spare J-pole, and a back-from-the-dead laptop. Cobbled it all together and got it working.
If I could hazard a guess.. people got bored with packet. People stopped making new hardware. People are still using TNCs made in the 80s and 90s connected to serial ports. Not to mention packet is painfully slow. And nobody was home. The local digipeater was offline and had been offline for months with no timeframe to when it would be repaired. Originally set up by the state with fed gummit money. Now that the state has to tighten its belt getting a digipeater online is low on the list. There are two other digipeaters that with the right antenna and 50w I could hit more or less. Got in touch with the local emcomm guys near each tower to give it a trial run. Short story - fail. One tower was fairly reliable, the other much less so. Only once was I able to connect to the 'easy' tower and then connect to the 'hard' tower. And oh geez was this thing slow. I was told it would be slow but this was painful. Talking with the emcomm guys it looked like it was a waste of time till the local digipeater was back online. Dismantled the station. I've got the stuff to do a APRS weather station and that's where I'm going next. Top shelf Davis station is working like a champ. Just got one tweak left which is get the anemometer a bit higher up. Tie that into the TNC and that battered FT-1900. Davis has the hardware and software off the shelf for that. Just need to dig out the hardware and make it happen. FFI on the Citizen Weather Observation Program at http://wxqa.com/ Now I do like the concept of packet. However unless you have the infrastructure it's a bit of a dead end. Something we've been tinkering with is PSK over FM repeaters. So far so good. What we like about is if repeater A is down, no worries, just go to repeater B. All you got left is that moonbat down the street 70cm machine? Yeah we can do that. Hardware is easy. Soundcard interface, netbook, and a HT. It has promise. Edited to add: Reading the rest of the posts there are other technologies that may have promise. I'm not knocking any of them. As one said there is no standard. Until there is a standard we are just spinning our wheels. Wish FEMA, ARES, RACES, and Red Cross could sit across the table and hammer out a national standard protocol and then use whatever local system as a backup. |
|
Quoted:
Something we've been tinkering with is PSK over FM repeaters. You're talking 2M SSB over FM, right? Hope you're not splattering PSK over 3K of bandwidth. We tested with SSB here (I believe I mentioned NBEMS earlier). It worked but is painfully slow. Several have mentioned APRS. We used APRS extensively for vehicle tracking but I don't see it having a big place in message traffic. Is it possible? Sure. But I see it more as a nice feature than something to rely on for heavy usage. |
|
Quoted:
Quoted:
Something we've been tinkering with is PSK over FM repeaters. You're talking 2M SSB over FM, right? Hope you're not splattering PSK over 3K of bandwidth. We tested with SSB here (I believe I mentioned NBEMS earlier). It worked but is painfully slow. Several have mentioned APRS. We used APRS extensively for vehicle tracking but I don't see it having a big place in message traffic. Is it possible? Sure. But I see it more as a nice feature than something to rely on for heavy usage. My local clubs run digital modes over FM on the repeaters. MT63 is the main mode we use. |
|
Quoted:
Quoted:
Quoted:
Something we've been tinkering with is PSK over FM repeaters. You're talking 2M SSB over FM, right? Hope you're not splattering PSK over 3K of bandwidth. We tested with SSB here (I believe I mentioned NBEMS earlier). It worked but is painfully slow. Several have mentioned APRS. We used APRS extensively for vehicle tracking but I don't see it having a big place in message traffic. Is it possible? Sure. But I see it more as a nice feature than something to rely on for heavy usage. My local clubs run digital modes over FM on the repeaters. MT63 is the main mode we use. Same here. |
|
Digital modes over FM are no wider than standard FM voice signals.
I would have to go back thru the different modes but all soundcard modes should work as they are just tone shifts and bit patterns. The repeater group here goes nutts if someone sends digital over the repeaters. Since the deviation on FM is around 3khz all modes will have the same thruput speed 1200 baud. Need to build a 900 MHz infrastructure similar to HSSM. Like the idea of combo antennas. Downfall from what I read is HSSM requires a wired user connection. |
|
Quoted:
Digital modes over FM are no wider than standard FM voice signals. I would have to go back thru the different modes but all soundcard modes should work as they are just tone shifts and bit patterns. The repeater group here goes nutts if someone sends digital over the repeaters. I realize they're no wider. The problem we ran into was dropping to the lower portion of the band to avoid the repeaters and either a) interfering with voice contacts or b) falling outside the band. I can imagine heads exploding trying to put digital modes over a repeater. 
|
|
Quoted:
Quoted:
Digital modes over FM are no wider than standard FM voice signals. I would have to go back thru the different modes but all soundcard modes should work as they are just tone shifts and bit patterns. The repeater group here goes nutts if someone sends digital over the repeaters. I realize they're no wider. The problem we ran into was dropping to the lower portion of the band to avoid the repeaters and either a) interfering with voice contacts or b) falling outside the band. I can imagine heads exploding trying to put digital modes over a repeater.
My local club runs digital modes over the repeater during pretty much every net. I don't see what the problem is. The net is specifically set up to allow people to practice getting their digital interfaces working for emergency nets. Going past the band edges really shouldn't be an issue. Most commercial radios will only splatter slightly past the band edges, and even to do that you'd have to be ~ 1.5 khz from the band edge. The bottom of 2m (below 144.6) is reserved for CW and SSB. |
|
Quoted:
My local club runs digital modes over the repeater during pretty much every net. I don't see what the problem is. The net is specifically set up to allow people to practice getting their digital interfaces working for emergency nets. Well, wouldn't you say that's a little different if it's setup that way as opposed to a few guys just hopping on and squawking? |
|
Quoted:
Quoted:
My local club runs digital modes over the repeater during pretty much every net. I don't see what the problem is. The net is specifically set up to allow people to practice getting their digital interfaces working for emergency nets. Well, wouldn't you say that's a little different if it's setup that way as opposed to a few guys just hopping on and squawking? They allow people to run digital modes on the repeater when it's not busy. *shrug* |
| My interest in packet radio was fairly natural given my career as a computer consultant, but I've been disappointed. My interest was in having a reliable way to communicate / leave messages between myself and a few family members (that are working on their licenses now). I don't even mind if packet radio is essentially abandoned, I'm attracted to the infrastructure-less emergency-communication aspect of it. Unfortunately, I can only find really old gear, and not any really good guidance on how to go about getting started. Left to flounder on my own, I've essentially given up. Why is it so hard to find a USB / soundcard interface that would work with Windows 7 and a modern-ish program that I could begin to learn on? |
|
USB hardware is out the
Byonics Tiny Track 4 with right firmware Even MFJ brought back the old faithful 1270 in a USB model. I haven't looked at the command structure but bet it's is similar to what it use to be. It does contain a mailbox. Modern day software Haha unless it is APRS related. I think your hinting at TCP/IP. Wished packet would get back to that. There was some custom fireware to do that. Google "Rose Net" been a long time since I had an interest in packet. |