Thursday, August 22, 2002
to Seattle Wireless
---
>Having multiple AP's on a "reserved" LAN (not connected to your home PC's)
> that goes to the router computer gives you the ability have unlimited radios
> at your hotspot.
The challenge here is that you only really have 3 non-overlapping channels to
use. Even then, if the AP hardware and/or antennas are close - you'll probably
have interference between them in the form of a raised noise floor. Ideally to do this you'll
want to isolate the individual units from each other as much as possible - maybe
by doing something like mounting them below the roof line so the building
is acting as a shield.
Multiple RF links are a challenge...
Bill
---
>Having multiple AP's on a "reserved" LAN (not connected to your home PC's)
> that goes to the router computer gives you the ability have unlimited radios
> at your hotspot.
The challenge here is that you only really have 3 non-overlapping channels to
use. Even then, if the AP hardware and/or antennas are close - you'll probably
have interference between them in the form of a raised noise floor. Ideally to do this you'll
want to isolate the individual units from each other as much as possible - maybe
by doing something like mounting them below the roof line so the building
is acting as a shield.
Multiple RF links are a challenge...
Bill
to Wetnet
---
>This leads me to ask, "Who is the gateway for the 103 lan? Is her/his
>internet side really at 209.162.138.96? Have they updated their
>tunnel routes?"
Telnet:209.162.138.96 logs in to n7nei.wagate.net
I left a note for Ron to check that his return tunnel to wetnet.net goes
to 66.114.139.158 - the new wetnet.net system.
I've been working on the Wetnet Lans Wiki page a bit. Not done yet but
it's getting closer.
http://wiki.jnos.org/WetnetLans
Bill
Thursday, August 15, 2002
to TinyTrak Yahoo list
---
>That hasn't been my experience. When my GPS is out of range, I get
>packets like this:
>KD7HFP>CQ,KOPEAK*,WIDE3-3,qAS,N7YT:>/vanbrunt@vanbrunt.com
>Just my status text, no position.
Actually, this does show your position - on a really wide area. Bob Bruninga,
Mr APRS, calls this vicinity tracking. It shows your vicinity based on the location
of the first digipeater that picks up your packet and substitutes its callsign for the
first generic RELAY or WIDE field.
Just looking at your packet above, I see that KOPEAK was the first digi, and I know that's
in the "vicinity" of Southwestern Washington.
Some APRS software - APRSDOS and maybe others - are smart enough to plot your
position on the map based on the first digi.
This doesn't tell much if you're driving around town - but it would work if you were
driving across county and didn't have a GPS available.
73,
Bill - WA7NWP
---
>That hasn't been my experience. When my GPS is out of range, I get
>packets like this:
>KD7HFP>CQ,KOPEAK*,WIDE3-3,qAS,N7YT:>/vanbrunt@vanbrunt.com
>Just my status text, no position.
Actually, this does show your position - on a really wide area. Bob Bruninga,
Mr APRS, calls this vicinity tracking. It shows your vicinity based on the location
of the first digipeater that picks up your packet and substitutes its callsign for the
first generic RELAY or WIDE field.
Just looking at your packet above, I see that KOPEAK was the first digi, and I know that's
in the "vicinity" of Southwestern Washington.
Some APRS software - APRSDOS and maybe others - are smart enough to plot your
position on the map based on the first digi.
This doesn't tell much if you're driving around town - but it would work if you were
driving across county and didn't have a GPS available.
73,
Bill - WA7NWP
Thursday, August 08, 2002
To: seattlewireless.net
Subject: RE: Wireless networks during emergency situations
At 03:41 PM 8/8/02 -0700, Sinack wrote:
>Well typically, emergency services need to be able to connect "outside"
>the affected zone and if its just a local community wireless network how
>will that help? I mean ....when emergency services respond to an
>emergency of the magnitude of which you describe they bring their own
>sat phones and communication equipment (IE national guard etc)...so
>again I ask what good is this thing which you propose? How could it help
>in a situation such as this? (not ragging on your idea ....just don't
>see how it would help....looking for clarification) Sinack
That's exactly where we (the Ham TCP/IP Seattle group) are looking. WiFi
can't be beat for the last 100' from a server to op-stations. Getting from
a vicinity with working Internet to the server in the affected zone is something
that can be done, as stated here, with Satellite systems or by using the Amateur
TCP/IP network. It's more then adequate for low speed (Email, instant messaging,
newsgroups) communications in the 10's of miles range.
While many services are improving their communications technology, they
usually find a great need for the non-priority health and welfare communications.
This is where volunteers can be very useful.
Bill, WA7NWP
Subject: RE: Wireless networks during emergency situations
At 03:41 PM 8/8/02 -0700, Sinack wrote:
>Well typically, emergency services need to be able to connect "outside"
>the affected zone and if its just a local community wireless network how
>will that help? I mean ....when emergency services respond to an
>emergency of the magnitude of which you describe they bring their own
>sat phones and communication equipment (IE national guard etc)...so
>again I ask what good is this thing which you propose? How could it help
>in a situation such as this? (not ragging on your idea ....just don't
>see how it would help....looking for clarification) Sinack
That's exactly where we (the Ham TCP/IP Seattle group) are looking. WiFi
can't be beat for the last 100' from a server to op-stations. Getting from
a vicinity with working Internet to the server in the affected zone is something
that can be done, as stated here, with Satellite systems or by using the Amateur
TCP/IP network. It's more then adequate for low speed (Email, instant messaging,
newsgroups) communications in the 10's of miles range.
While many services are improving their communications technology, they
usually find a great need for the non-priority health and welfare communications.
This is where volunteers can be very useful.
Bill, WA7NWP
Wednesday, August 07, 2002
to WETNET
---
> At 11:30 AM 8/7/02 -0700, bobdonnell AT pugetsound.net wrote:
>That implies a "fast" RF connection from wetnet.net to the FD site...
That's not a problem - it's an opportunity!
This year, Doug/K7IP and I both ended up with a new update of
PocketSat. Which, of course, had an annoying bug. I received
a bug fix update Saturday evening. It would have been really
cool if I'd been able to FTP the update (90K) to Doug via the
amateur circuit. This is something we should really work on having
in place for next year.
Given the improved status of our network - I'd say we're now very
close to being able to do that.
Bill - WA7NWP
---
> At 11:30 AM 8/7/02 -0700, bobdonnell AT pugetsound.net wrote:
>That implies a "fast" RF connection from wetnet.net to the FD site...
That's not a problem - it's an opportunity!
This year, Doug/K7IP and I both ended up with a new update of
PocketSat. Which, of course, had an annoying bug. I received
a bug fix update Saturday evening. It would have been really
cool if I'd been able to FTP the update (90K) to Doug via the
amateur circuit. This is something we should really work on having
in place for next year.
Given the improved status of our network - I'd say we're now very
close to being able to do that.
Bill - WA7NWP
Tuesday, August 06, 2002
to APRSSIG
---
>At 07:30 AM 8/6/02 -0500, Tim Billingsley wrote:
>I am familiar with fndu and all its lookup capabilities but is there
>anywhere that you can see "live" maps of an area online?
>
> Tim Billingsley KD5CKP
In addition to Pete's Java Findu, JavAPRS does this. I provide
a server for folks to watch various regions in the Northwest, specifically
the Puget Sound area. A large number of mapping options are
available.
Basic display: http://www.jnos. org/cgi-bin/ja
Displayed on local traffic system: http://www.jnos. org/cgi-bin/ja?wadot
Using Microsoft's on line maps: http://www.jnos. org/cgi-bin/ja?expedia
73,
Bill - WA7NWP
---
>At 07:30 AM 8/6/02 -0500, Tim Billingsley wrote:
>I am familiar with fndu and all its lookup capabilities but is there
>anywhere that you can see "live" maps of an area online?
>
> Tim Billingsley KD5CKP
In addition to Pete's Java Findu, JavAPRS does this. I provide
a server for folks to watch various regions in the Northwest, specifically
the Puget Sound area. A large number of mapping options are
available.
Basic display: http://www.jnos. org/cgi-bin/ja
Displayed on local traffic system: http://www.jnos. org/cgi-bin/ja?wadot
Using Microsoft's on line maps: http://www.jnos. org/cgi-bin/ja?expedia
73,
Bill - WA7NWP
Sunday, August 04, 2002
to NWAPRS
---
Howdy,
Thanks to the majority of local stations with a leading digipeater field
to allow tracking, I've made some good progress on my project to map
stations heard by our major digi's.
It's not truly dynamic yet - but adding digi's is simple and I'll have the
data updated every day. Let me know if there's any station you'd like
added to the list.
Here's a list on a wiki page of digi's currently being processed:
http://www.jnos.org/cgi-bin/moin.cgi/NwaprsJavAPRS
Note that on digi's not in the central region you may have to select
a different map to view the stations heard.
73,
Bill
---
Howdy,
Thanks to the majority of local stations with a leading digipeater field
to allow tracking, I've made some good progress on my project to map
stations heard by our major digi's.
It's not truly dynamic yet - but adding digi's is simple and I'll have the
data updated every day. Let me know if there's any station you'd like
added to the list.
Here's a list on a wiki page of digi's currently being processed:
http://www.jnos.org/cgi-bin/moin.cgi/NwaprsJavAPRS
Note that on digi's not in the central region you may have to select
a different map to view the stations heard.
73,
Bill
Saturday, August 03, 2002
to NWAPRS
---
I was asked about my suggestions last week. Here's my comments from the reply.
Might help to explain a bit more what I'm looking at.
I currently have the following path RELAY,WIDE3-3.
Are you suggesting I use RELAY,WIDE,WIDE2-2, or just WIDE,WIDE2-2.
If you are a mobile... In that case, you're going to be in and
out of many locations with less coverage so you want to take advantage of
any nearby home stations. Thus you want the first digi field to be "RELAY".
The concept here is that if all the base stations handle RELAY, they will fill
in the spots the main wide nodes don't cover and greatly increase the overall
APRS field of coverage.
If you were asking about a base station with better antenna and known nearby
digipeaters, then you'd replace the first RELAY with either the actual callsign
of the best wide digi or use WIDE. (Personally, and a bit away from the official
NWAPRS position, I like to use WIDE since then I don't rely on one single
digi to get to the system.)
That's the first digi position which is so useful for getting in to the system and to
flag your location and entrance to the network for Vicinity tracking.
The second part of the question is how far do you want the reports to go. The
standard NWAPRS position is 3 hops beyond the first, thus WIDE3-3. From my
observations I'm seeing these 3 hops are more then adequate for most general
operation. If this is for a tracker in a car that runs a couple times a day. Leave it
at WIDE3-3. If it's for a base station or a full time mobile, you won't be
hurt dropping it to WIDE2-2 and it'll cut down a bit on the network traffic.
A RELAY,WIDE2-2 is still three hops and that'll probably cover everywhere from
Portland to Vancouver. Thus my suggestion that folks with out a real need to
get to the edge of our system can drop from WIDE3-3 to WIDE2-2 and it'll probably
work just as well. If a large number of folks do it - it might even work better
because of the reduced network traffic.
Bottom line - my (personal and non-official) path suggestions.
RELAY,WIDE3-3 # typical mobile path
RELAY,WIDE2-2 # busy mobile path
WIDE,WIDE2-2 # base station
Bill, WA7NWP
---
I was asked about my suggestions last week. Here's my comments from the reply.
Might help to explain a bit more what I'm looking at.
I currently have the following path RELAY,WIDE3-3.
Are you suggesting I use RELAY,WIDE,WIDE2-2, or just WIDE,WIDE2-2.
If you are a mobile... In that case, you're going to be in and
out of many locations with less coverage so you want to take advantage of
any nearby home stations. Thus you want the first digi field to be "RELAY".
The concept here is that if all the base stations handle RELAY, they will fill
in the spots the main wide nodes don't cover and greatly increase the overall
APRS field of coverage.
If you were asking about a base station with better antenna and known nearby
digipeaters, then you'd replace the first RELAY with either the actual callsign
of the best wide digi or use WIDE. (Personally, and a bit away from the official
NWAPRS position, I like to use WIDE since then I don't rely on one single
digi to get to the system.)
That's the first digi position which is so useful for getting in to the system and to
flag your location and entrance to the network for Vicinity tracking.
The second part of the question is how far do you want the reports to go. The
standard NWAPRS position is 3 hops beyond the first, thus WIDE3-3. From my
observations I'm seeing these 3 hops are more then adequate for most general
operation. If this is for a tracker in a car that runs a couple times a day. Leave it
at WIDE3-3. If it's for a base station or a full time mobile, you won't be
hurt dropping it to WIDE2-2 and it'll cut down a bit on the network traffic.
A RELAY,WIDE2-2 is still three hops and that'll probably cover everywhere from
Portland to Vancouver. Thus my suggestion that folks with out a real need to
get to the edge of our system can drop from WIDE3-3 to WIDE2-2 and it'll probably
work just as well. If a large number of folks do it - it might even work better
because of the reduced network traffic.
Bottom line - my (personal and non-official) path suggestions.
RELAY,WIDE3-3 # typical mobile path
RELAY,WIDE2-2 # busy mobile path
WIDE,WIDE2-2 # base station
Bill, WA7NWP
