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Summary
of the NERG Meeting held on the 13th May 2004
Another Month gone by already and yes, another night filled with all sorts of interesting items to watch and listed to. At very short notice David VK3THY and Mark VK3BYY prepared and gave us a first class exhibition on what we can expect from Packet Radio. (including the occasional glitches) David provided an excellent talk, starting with the history of Packet Radio down to the use it receives today, complimenting many points with on screen displays. Then after a little fun and fiddling David and Mark established 2 Packet Radio stations that they then used to “talk” to each other, with David projecting his display onto a screen for us all to see.
When the Packet Radio discussion finished David gave us a quick visit to several web sites that contain all sorts of things magical for an Amateur to play with. He has very kindly made a listing of these sites and added very informative comment as you can read under.
Our thanks to both David and Mark.
1: Packet, Peak Systems
(The home of G4IDE's WinPack packet radio software) http://www.peaksys.co.uk
2: APRS
UI-View is an APRS application for Windows. It differs from most APRS software in that it isn't designed just to be used with TNCs in terminal mode. It also supports TNCs in KISS mode, AGWPE host mode and BPQ host mode. (The 32 bit version also supports WA8DED/TF host mode, and the variant of it used in the SCS PTC-II and PTC-IIe.) The host mode support means that UI-View can be used with an extremely wide range of packet hardware and allows up to 16 RF ports to be used. UI-View has a full-featured internal intelligent digipeater. UI-View has full support for connecting to APRS servers on the Internet. UI-View uses bitmap images for its maps. Also, the 32 bit version has full support for a CD atlas, allowing you to zoom to street level anywhere. (If you have the maps)
UI-View has an open architecture. It is designed to make it easy for other software authors to write add-on applications that provide additional functionality.
http://www.ui-view.com/index.shtml. APRS Maps for Melbourne: (Remember UI-View needs a map to display an APRS station) http://vk3.aprs.net.au/maps.shtml
3: DX Monitor by VE3SUN (Look at DX Cluster Sites as well as you can announce Spots and Call CQ!!)
Great Circle Map shows NCDXF/IARU beacons in real time Double click for Call book CDrom or QRZ online database lookup, Regional location information for plotting and beam heading, Easy URLs for monitoring QRP, Satellite or other special lists, Plot DX stations, spotters, and path on Great Circle Map automatically, Click on map to identify DX spot and information Proxy now supports username and password, Improved Internet interface for faster downloads, Automatic download of updates to prefix - location data (CTY.DAT), Multiple copies may run simultaneously for monitoring different lists, Mailing list for additional support
http://www.benlo.com/dxmon.html
4:HamScope
HamScope is a multi-mode communications interface for amateur radio that Supports, CW, PSK31 (BPSK and QPSK), RTTY (HamScope uses Makoto Mori's MMTTY Engine), ASCII (both 7 bit and 8 bit protocols using MMTTY), MFSK16 (see MFSK16 Home Page ), PACKET (HamScope uses George Rossopoulos' AGWPE Engine), Hamscope also offers an advanced user interface with a multitude of features to provide optimal control and convenience during operation: a wide, multifunction panoramic display a radio control interface for several ICOM, TenTec, Kenwood, and Yaesu transceivers, 42 user-programmable macro buttons user definable function key mappings HamScope 1.54 has added data links to several logging and/or radio control programs: DXbase LOGic 6 RYLogit TRX-Manager YPLOG HamScope also supplies a DDE server for users who wish to connect to the program.
http://www.qsl.net/hamscope/HamScope.html
5: WXtrack - Satellite tracking
WXtrack is used by many Universities and satellite enthusiasts across the world, and is also used within the industry. WXtrack can drive a number of popular antenna tracking systems including controllers based on the WiSPDDE, EA4TX's ARSWIN, Kansas City Tracker (RR.exe and ON1CIM's KctTracker.exe), SeaTel, CX6DD (supports Yaesu GS232), EasyComm, IF-100 and FodTrack standards. There are options for early start-up of the tracker, antenna offset, flip-mode, antenna parking at pass end, running a command at start-of-tracking etc., and the program has a quick point-at-object mode for setting up your antenna with the sun, moon etc. A Satellite Summary form is available by right-clicking the World Map display - includes MA display, nearest city in addition to azimuth, elevation range etc. The latitude and longitude of the mouse on the World Map is given in, and the range and bearing from the home location. Input from GPS for location and time setting, GPS prediction mode. Extended Radar view functionality, especially for GPS Solar outage times for geostationary satellites. Radio control is possible with the WiSPDDE software. Satellite priority setting and automatic switch to next available satellite.
The Tracker Test command is considerably enhanced by adding offset control, manual positioning and RA/Dec tabs - ideal for tracker set-up and testing. The tracker parking option is available. HRPT channel selection is possible with the Götz Romahn/Bob Barnes CX6DD tracker variant.
http://www.david-taylor.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/software/wxtrack.htm
The NERG do offer an invitation to any person
interested in Amateur Radio to visit us on any club night.
73
Don
VK3KDT
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North East Radio Group, Inc. Melbourne, Australia. updated 1 July 2008 VT
