Posted: 2/2/2016 12:31:03 PM EDT
I'm starting this thread to discuss what we are doing here in my home town and begin a dialogue with others who are using FSQCall. Here is a quick diagram I put together of what we are doing here in my area. I put several assumptions and explanations in the diagram which I am hoping will spur comments, questions and ideas.
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| Way out here in the Kountry we simply don't have enough folks to make it work...But I can at least dream that one day we will! Did you hear the past episode of Linux in the Ham Shack where they discussed the Mesh-Net? It was a great show! (eta: your art is far better than mine too!) |
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I did not hear that. Was it mesh via FSQ Call? This network is not using converted WiFi routers it's using VHF simplex. thinking they mentioned it, with a focus on the WiFi gear. found it i need to listen again, it was maybe their best show (IMO) |
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It's not really packet, it's simpler than that. The app runs 24x7 and can run unattended. Other stations in the mesh can interact with your station for relaying, file transfer, etc..
It works great on HF. I'd recommend installing and using on the FSQ HF frequencies to get more acquainted with it's function. There are some important settings that I am planning to cover in another post when I get home, including screenshots. |
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Does it operate on HF as well? Piggyback off this question: If multiple stations have permanently installed antennas that cover 40/60/80m and radios with rig control, will FSQCall conduct "soundings" on each of the bands and choose the best one? Can it "scan" across the three bands so if a station calls on a sub-optimal band, the call is "caught" and everything shifts to follow? |
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"If multiple stations have permanently installed antennas that cover 40/60/80m and radios with rig control, will FSQCall conduct "soundings" on each of the bands and choose the best one? Can it "scan" across the three bands so if a station calls on a sub-optimal band, the call is "caught" and everything shifts to follow? "
That would be awesome but no, not yet. I've been compiling a list of features that I'd love to see incorporated in future versions of the application. |
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I have played with this idea a lot. Maybe it is just the colors but it looks like it is using fldigi? My idea was to use the xml interface of fldigi because of it's cross platform and universalness We mostly use the FSQCall [US] version. In our experience the rate of decoding is far better using FSQCall rather than FLDIGI. Also, the FLDIGI lacks a few key features when using it within a mesh. |
| This is very cool. I'd like to find a group of like minded hams locally to do this kind of stuff with, but so far my probes into the local club have been unsuccessful. There is a guy in the Anchorage club who is spearheading an effort to get broadband-hamnet stuff installed into the emergency shelters, but it's slow going and those guys are kind of hard to get in touch with. |
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This is very cool. I'd like to find a group of like minded hams locally to do this kind of stuff with, but so far my probes into the local club have been unsuccessful. There is a guy in the Anchorage club who is spearheading an effort to get broadband-hamnet stuff installed into the emergency shelters, but it's slow going and those guys are kind of hard to get in touch with. Agreed, I was spinning my wheels as a ham for over a year trying to find something to get involved in beyond my own personal efforts. I happened to hear some chatter about a "digital learning net" that occurs on one of the local repeaters. From there, I found an ARES group here that was experimenting with this stuff and got involved even though I'm not a member of that group. The nice thing about this vs hamnet is that pretty much every ham in the galaxy has a 2 meter radio. All you really need for this is a 2M radio, a sound card interface of some kind and a computer. Some ARFCOMMERs that live within NVIS range of each other could do this as well. I'm a ham and I don't play CB but there's no technical limitation to doing this with any kind of radio that can be connected to a sound card interface, just an ethernet cable, a mic connector and about 5 cents worth of solder. The only real limitations here are legal ones. (If this last sentence crosses a line here, please let me know. I'm new here.) |
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is a Pi applicable? That is a good question. I had a Pi for about a week, couldn't think of anything useful to do with it so I returned it. That was about two years ago though. I think there is a linux version of FSQCall, can a Pi do sound interface to a radio? You may have just started me down the path of buying another Pi. haha |
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That is a good question. I had a Pi for about a week, couldn't think of anything useful to do with it so I returned it. That was about two years ago though. I think there is a linux version of FSQCall, can a Pi do sound interface to a radio? You may have just started me down the path of buying another Pi. haha Quoted:
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is a Pi applicable? That is a good question. I had a Pi for about a week, couldn't think of anything useful to do with it so I returned it. That was about two years ago though. I think there is a linux version of FSQCall, can a Pi do sound interface to a radio? You may have just started me down the path of buying another Pi. haha PI's can almost do anything. I've seen someone make an echolink gateway with one. This really has my interest, but I am the only ham without a 2m radio! |
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That is a good question. I had a Pi for about a week, couldn't think of anything useful to do with it so I returned it. That was about two years ago though. I think there is a linux version of FSQCall, can a Pi do sound interface to a radio? You may have just started me down the path of buying another Pi. haha Quoted:
Quoted:
is a Pi applicable? That is a good question. I had a Pi for about a week, couldn't think of anything useful to do with it so I returned it. That was about two years ago though. I think there is a linux version of FSQCall, can a Pi do sound interface to a radio? You may have just started me down the path of buying another Pi. haha It would be very useful with a small (6") touchscreen lcd display and micro keyboard. Run the pi off of a 10k (ish) mAh battery bank or gel cell and you're set! |
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So you're not from this galaxy? 
By the way, I'm very interested also. That could be a pretty nice setup for mobile. Quoted:
This really has my interest, but I am the only ham without a 2m radio! So you're not from this galaxy?
By the way, I'm very interested also. That could be a pretty nice setup for mobile. I'll have one soon! |
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I am playing around with FSQ on HF right now.
I downloaded this when the article came out in QST a few months ago, but I never did anything with it until today. I have received a few transmissions so far, but am just trying to figure out how it all works. I hope this thread stays active and we get some people involved in this and get some discussion going. I will mention this tonight at our local radio club meeting and see if I can talk anyone else into getting into this. Knowing the people in the club, I may get one or two people to participate. Until I can get someone else local to me involved, there is no point in my getting this going on VHF or UHF. I do have a signal link that I can use with my Kenwood TM-D710. But for now, I am doing HF. FWIW: there has been a lot of talk on this board about software defined radio. FSQ is something that works well with my Flex SDR because I can have one slice monitoring FSQ while I operate in another mode on another slice. Right now, I am playing around with the FSQ software as well as the FLDIGI version of it. I have both programs running at the same time with the FSQ software monitoring 40 meters and the FLDIGI version running on 30 meters. |
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I definitely plan to keep this thread going if I can. :-)
One thing to pay attention to is to be sure to turn on "FSQCall" That will expose some additional options and show you a "heard list" in the lower right corner. I believe that it's the top option on the second drop down menu. I'm at work right now so I can't look. Also, once you are in FSQCall mode, turn on sounding on a 10 minute interval so you start showing up in other heard lists at other stations. FSQ and FLDIGI can run simultaneous even with a standard radio. This is because the waterfall location is fixed in FSQ so PSK can actually run right along side it in a different position on the waterfall, on the same frequency. This works great on VHF FM. There's enough room to run BPSK 250 outside the FSQ portion of the waterfall. |
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I definitely plan to keep this thread going if I can. :-) One thing to pay attention to is to be sure to turn on "FSQCall" That will expose some additional options and show you a "heard list" in the lower right corner. I believe that it's the top option on the second drop down menu. I'm at work right now so I can't look. Also, once you are in FSQCall mode, turn on sounding on a 10 minute interval so you start showing up in other heard lists at other stations. FSQ and FLDIGI can run simultaneous even with a standard radio. This is because the waterfall location is fixed in FSQ so PSK can actually run right along side it in a different position on the waterfall, on the same frequency. This works great on VHF FM. There's enough room to run BPSK 250 outside the FSQ portion of the waterfall. Yeah, I never thought about that, but yep that would work. I was thinking more about being on a different band or on a totally different frequency. FSQ can be sort of sitting in the background listening for messages while you are doing something else. I do the same thing a lot of the time with six meters. I have a pan adapter open on six meters while I have a different one open on another band. If six meters happens to open up, I can see that and QSY to take advantage of the opening. But, I don't have to sit there and listen to static while I am waiting on the band to open. I keep trying to use the "sounding" function but there is too much traffic on the frequency. It looks like in the afternoon on 40 meters, this thing is pretty busy. I haven't seen a thing on 30 meters yet. |
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This is just like running any other digital mode in terms of hardware.
In fact, as mentioned, you can even run this mode using FLDIGI, so if you have your rig set-up to run PSK31 using FLDIGI, all you have to do is switch modes in the FLDIGI software to FSQ, and you are good to go. |
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This is just like running any other digital mode in terms of hardware. In fact, as mentioned, you can even run this mode using FLDIGI, so if you have your rig set-up to run PSK31 using FLDIGI, all you have to do is switch modes in the FLDIGI software to FSQ, and you are good to go. Yes you are right. It's got a few issues but it does work pretty well in most cases. |
I am not sure if this needs to be pointed out, but in this video, he is simulating three different stations so you can see what happens on both ends when he sends a message. When you are actually doing this, you only have one of those on your screen. The software download is HERE NW8L/KA4CDN FSQCall V0.24.6 US Edition - preferred version (with image modes, copy & paste) is the version I am using. FLDIGI Download You can do this using either FSQCALL or FLDIGI. Since they are both free downloads, why not download and install both ? Again, if you have your rig set up to run digital modes like PSK31, RTTY, JT65..........., or whatever, that is all it takes in terms of hardware. You need a radio, computer, some kind of soundcard interface like a Signalink or Rigblaster to get the audio signal to and from your radio, and you need the software. You either download FSQCALL and configure it for your soundcard device and com ports. Or, if you already are using FLDIGI, all you do is switch modes to FSQ (assuming you have the lastest version of FLDIGI). Or you can do both, try them both out and see what you like. I am running FLDIGI version 3.23.05 You take your mouse, go up to the top left where it says OP MODE, open that menu, go down to the fourth item (FSQ) which opens another drop down menu. And select the one you want. I am using FSQ-4.5. I believe that is the default but I may be wrong on this. I am brand new to this. If you go to YouTube and search for FSQCALL, there are other videos besides the one I posted. |
| The FSQCall [US] version is the best for mesh, 24/7 operation. It is designed to manage both global and targeted messages. In the FSQ application you have to turn on FSQCall, which I believe is the top item in the second drop down menu. That will add some panes to the view and will add some extra buttons to the lower right side of the window. |
Here are some screen shots of FSQ running the FSQCall interface. Screen shot 2 explains how to turn this on. I've added the important comments to each screen. On screen 1 I forgot to mention, once there are call signs in the heard list, you can right click them to see what the popular options are to interact with that station. There are others in the "Syntax" tab.
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sturmgewehr762 Very nice, I learned a few things there. Thanks, There are a couple more screenshots that I need to do still. We've been at this for a couple of months now so I'm having to try to remember what those "Eureka Moments" were for me and try to document them. |
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Looks interesting! Ran across a .PDF download from the North Shore Radio Club meeting presentation dated Jan. 2016, "Introduction to FSQ" here: http://www.ns9rc.org/downloads/meeting-presentations/2016/
once there, download "2016-01-12-Introduction-to-FSQ.pdf". (edited to seperate file from directory - direct download was blocked) that looked helpful (to me...). May have to set up something on an HF band & see how things look. The 80m FWL makes for some good NVIS & have the fan for higher freqs. Nick |
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Looks interesting! Ran across a .PDF download from the North Shore Radio Club meeting presentation dated Jan. 2016, "Introduction to FSQ" here: http://www.ns9rc.org/downloads/meeting-presentations/2016/2016-01-12-Introduction-to-FSQ.pdf that looked helpful (to me...). May have to set up something on an HF band & see how things look. The 80m FWL makes for some good NVIS & have the fan for higher freqs. Nick Link doesn't work for me. |
| This weekend I spent the weekend operating portable and mobile in NW Arkansas. Periodically throughout the day I would tune to the mesh we have setup in the KC area and every time I had strong communication into the mesh on 40M. In fact, operating portable on batteries from Round Mountain, Ar to KC all of the signals I could see were 23db or greater. My signal into KC was about 20db using 5 watts, transmitting into a resonant inverted V. I did not get to try 80M at night on this trip, we stayed in a hotel rather than camping. |
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... Link doesn't work for me. turns out site blocked direct link. edited post to just link to location from which file can be downloaded http://www.ns9rc.org/downloads/meeting-presentations/2016/ once there, download "2016-01-12-Introduction-to-FSQ.pdf" Nick |