Technical Elmering and Mentoring Net –

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The audio archive can best followed by downloading the .mp3 file for the appropriate date here and listening with the media player of your choice. You can move the progress slider forward or backward to the subject of interest to you.

We had a good turn out tonight with 7 check-ins plus net control, Garrett (AG6RQ) and some chat room visitors! Tonight’s subjects included:

  • Will a wire antenna build up a static charge in the wind?
  • Eric’s (KG6WXC) Mesh Network connection progress.
  • Plotting your location with Google Earth and then magnetic headings to Mesh network targets.
  • Using Virtual Network interfaces to connect to Mesh network and regular internet simultaneously.
  • Joining the SBARC mesh networking e-mail list server.
  • Antenna COAX outdoor sealant suggestions (silicone self sealing tape).

Tune in to the SBARC TM&E Net next Thursday at 8:00 PM (2000 Hrs) and see what interesting questions will arise or ask some of your own! All club members and visitors are encouraged to check in to the TM&E net each week and join in with questions and /or answers to and contribute the knowledge of new and seasoned amateur radio operators alike.

Mesh Services Update April 29, 2016

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Well a few of you have discovered the website and the chat server and used them! People should just check in from time to time so we know everyone’s alive.

I ran into some problems with the NTP (time) server. I didn’t get a chance to work on it much this week. But I got the GPS module functioning and able to maintain accurate time even if satellite coverage is lost temporarily. That is important for an indoor installation without an outside antenna. The NTP daemon that installs with Raspbian is not natively capable of acting as a Stratum 1 (GPS synchronized) NTP server. So I have to make a few changes to the code and recompile. Luckily I found someone else that did this a couple of years ago, and while the code is not the same, the principle is. So that shouldn’t take long once I get into it.

I was trying to think of a way to set up a mail server to users could communicate privately, but it relies on normal DNS very heavily and it would take too much work. So instead, I am going to set up a bulletin board type forum server using another Raspberry with SMF, MySql and Apache. This will allow users to create private accounts and exchange private messages as well as host conventional public forum functions. I think this will fill the bill and ultimately be a real helpful addition to the mesh network.

There’s talk about hooking up with Ventura county sooner rather than later, and on up to Santa Ynez Peak soon as well. So when we can integrate with the larger mesh, I want SBARC to have a full compliment of services we can show off!

-K6BPM

Technical Mentoring and Elmering Net – Thursday April 28, 2016

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The audio archive can best followed by downloading the .mp3 file for the appropriate date here and listening with the media player of your choice. You can move the progress slider forward or backward to the subject of interest to you.

We had a good turn out tonight with 10 check-ins plus net control, Hayden (KK6OYV) and some chat room visitors! Tonight’s subjects included:

  • Where is a good place to have your QSL cards done and what size should they be? Hint: 3.5 X 5.5.
  • How to use the Ubiquity airGateway with our Mesh Networking project.
  • Satellite tracking directory or internet resource for that, any special equipment needed to communicate with satellites and what can you do when you do reach one.
  • What protocol, if any, should you use when you do get into a satellite?
  • Coax Wrap and a local alternatives without having to order from HRO, etc.
  • Miscellaneous discussions.

Tune in to the SBARC TM&E Net next Thursday at 8:00 PM (2000 Hrs) and see what interesting questions will arise or ask some of your own! All club members and visitors are encouraged to check in to the TM&E net each week and join in with questions and /or answers to and contribute the knowledge of new and seasoned amateur radio operators alike.

Packet Radio Upgrades

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We’ve recently upgraded our packet radio capabilities here in Santa Barbara. Very popular back in the 80’s, packet lost much of it’s appeal with the advent of the Internet and email. However, for those of us interested in digital modes, packet radio is making a comeback. Unlike out normal HF oriented digital modes, packet lets us communicate with email like messages between users locally, and users of other packet systems around Southern California and beyond.

thThe K6TZ-3 packet station on La Cumbre Peak offers a PBBS (SBPBBS) system for messages and a Digipeater (SBDIGI) for relaying packet messages to other systems. It runs on a Kantronics KPC3 TNC and broadcasts on 145.050 at 25w. It has incredible reach easily reaching other packet stations down the coast of California. Recent modifications were to add KA-Node capability. This allows us to connect to out KN-Node (SBNODE) and connect to other KA-Nodes. You can connect from node to node to “chain” a connection from here to almost anywhere within a reasonable distance. Similarly, others can reach us from remote locations the same way.

I also installed two of my own packet stations here locally. They are mostly for fun and have nowhere near the coverage the La Cumbre Peak station has. However, they allow me to have my own mailbox system and people can leave me a message on my own systems.

Packet radio is far from dead. In a SHTF emergency, packet capabilities will allow 100% accurate text based messages to be sent quickly and easily. In my opinion, this is an extremely valuable skill to have and even if its popularity is not what it once was, it enhances our capabilities as individual amateurs as well as a club. It isn’t as complicated as it may seem, and is actually fun and challenging.

We discuss and operate packet on the Tuesday night SBARC Digital Modes Net, so if you have an interest, be sure to check in.

– Brian K6BPM

Keeping Time on the Mesh Network

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These days we’re all used to our computers always having the correct time. Periodically, they simply connect to the Internet and get the correct time from an Internet time (NTP) server. Our local mesh network is designed to work “off-the-grid” without an Internet connection. This is a problem.

All of our nodes and devices running services need to know the correct time. MeshChat servers record the date and time anyone posts a message. So does the SBARC mesh website. So how do we keep all these devices synchronized with the correct time?

To address this problem, I am building a Raspberry Pi (RPi) based stand-alone NTP Stratum 1 server. Since it cannot connect to the Internet to update the time, I decided to synchronize it using GPS. Adafruit makes a perfect add-on board for this that plugs into the GPIO header that offers full access to GPS signals including the time.

So every few seconds, the Raspberry “reads” the incoming GPS signals from whatever satellites it can “see” and adjusts it’s internal time. Normally, to get a good GPS “fix”, we need to connect to at least 5 or more satellites. However we can get an extremely accurate time reading from just one satellite.

Raspberry Pi 2 with GPS add-on board installed

Raspberry Pi 2 with GPS add-on board installed

To allow other devices on the mesh to synchronize the time, a little programming is required on the RPi so it can be used as an NTP Stratum 1 server. It operates exactly the same as a time server does on the Internet. So instead of using something like time.windows.com as a time server, we can use k6bpm-ntp.local.mesh as the time server for our mesh connected devices.

Connection speeds will vary node to node. While the RPi will be accurate to the millisecond, the various nodes using it may be off by a second or two because of latency delays due to connection speeds. But that’s okay. We don’t need millisecond accuracy for our purposes. In fact, we can be a minute off and it won’t hurt anything.

I will probably locate this at my house when I am through testing it. I have a very fast connection (25Mbps+) to the Gibraltar nodes there. Everyone is free to use it for their “NTP Server” when setting up their local nodes.

Technical Mentoring and Elmering Net – Thursday April 21, 2016

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The audio archive can best followed by downloading the .mp3 file for the appropriate date here and listening with the media player of your choice. You can move the progress slider forward or backward to the subject of interest to you.

Tonight’s net had 7 check-ins and some chat room visitors, Levi (K6LCM) was net control. Topics discussed were:

  • Repeater courtesy tone, what is it and how is it used? (Current stand in K6TZ repeater doesn’t have one).
  • What are the extra characters being transmitted in the repeater CW ID?
  • Continental Bio-Fuel airplane trip from Rhode Island to Santa Monica.

Tune in to the SBARC TM&E Net next Thursday at 8:00 PM (2000 Hrs) and see what interesting questions will arise or ask some of your own! All club members and visitors are encouraged to check in to the TM&E net each week and join in with questions and /or answers to and contribute the knowledge of new and seasoned amateur radio operators alike.