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Re: Sunflower was Re: How to Let Kids Talk with Santa Over Ham Radio This Holiday Season
Nice to see we can have a non real time conversation via this digital license free mode.. (HAHA) and share it with the rest of the subscribers..
Last night on YOUTUBE I caught the "podcast" of Ham Radio 2.0 .. That guy is out of Dallas Texas and I met him at on of the Dallas Hamfests last year and also at ARDMORE, OKLAHOMA.. His latest podcast was regarding the 3 new YAESU radio's just announced.. After viewin gthat I found John KRUK's -Yaesu America national Sales Manager, s review of the same 3 new radios. THe claim is that they will be at Dealers by the end of November --isn;t that yesterday?? Not like ICOM or Kenwood who announce new radio's and it's 6 months before they can be had.... Anyhow all 3 new Yaesu's are ANALOG FM Two are 2 meter a 65 watt and 85 watt rig.. Then a 2meter 440 dual band 50-35 watt unit. John Kruk went into a big spiel regarding ANALOG FM and the fact it is not dead and many hams have little use for digital modes or digital modes are just not popular in their part of the country.. Since neither of us live in NYC, LA or Boston, he's right.. I may condsider the new dual band rig as it's virtually "plug and play" for ALLSTAR.. It has a data port on the rear of the rig which will accept a DINAH dongle (made by the same people as the famous ALLSTAR SHARI) into a Raspberry PI. through a 10pin to 6 pin Yaesu data cable. The total cost of doing that is much less than the FTM-500 Fusion Dual band Yaesu.. The new rigs all feature weak signal digital signal processing making this ideal for a simplex wide area ALLSTAR NODE.. Considering the difficulty and extra costs to interface a Yaesu Fusion repeater to Allstar, 2 of the above would be a good lower cost way to get a repeater running on ALLSTAR.. Regards, Larry W8LM... |
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Re: Sunflower was Re: How to Let Kids Talk with Santa Over Ham Radio This Holiday Season
Good morning Larry and all …
You mentioned You mentioned M17. I wonder if anyone / everyone in the club ---for that matter everyone in Kansas is aware of M17.. I can’t talk for everyone in Kansas but I’m in Kansas … barely … and yes, I am aware. Speaking of audio quality, I agree that Allstar has the best analog audio. Add Hamshack Hotline and it’s even better! When I call nets, I listen on HH and sometimes talk on another mode. HH is full duplex. That means as NCS I can hear when someone is doubling. Also, the headset hears what the repeater hears not what the repeater transmits. This came out during a west Texas tornado warning. I checked into a linked system and heard a mobile report a tornado. The system admin listening on a radio could not “pull him out”. Now M17 might be flash in the pan. However, audio quality there is as good as Fusion and approaching Allstar quality. Using Droidstar, M17 and more are achievable. Every Friday, there’s a global all day M17 net. There’s a weekly net on Droidstar.net for users. From my understanding, M17 has a benefit in that the module plugs into an existing device, ex. Kenwood radio, and does the encryption and decryption. The module is cheaper than a new repeater. I may be wrong about this but I hope not. I remember a demonstration at a Hamfest a year or so ago. So users can use Droidstar on their cellphone and connect on M17 to whatever module is desired. THAT is cheap. I already have a cellphone. No additional radio required. One of the hams this week added the app to his phone. He thought it would be hard. I didn’t have to hold his hand. He called on Sunflower yesterday during the Santa Net. He had good audio. THAT is easy. My cellphone is insured by the ARRL equipment insurance. Because of the apps, it becomes a ham radio. Hope that helps. 73 -- Lloyd Colston, KC5FM SunflowerNet.us Hamshack Hotline 50052 |
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Re: Sunflower was Re: How to Let Kids Talk with Santa Over Ham Radio This Holiday Season
Nice to hear from you Lloyd....
You mentioned M17. I wonder if anyone / everyone in the club ---for that matter everyone in Kansas is aware of M17.. In an nutshell M17 is "yet another digital mode".... and further dilutes communications, and interoperability; especially if anyone has taken a look at the last hurricane season and the Butler County Pennsylvania assassination attempt /mass shooting this past fall. In those cases, dissimilar communications was a problem and at fault. Digital FM is the Amateur radio version of the Betamax -VHS wars we were so aware of back in the 1980's. except more diluted as because of multiple choice, a digital standard will NEVER be agreed upon. There's, one from Motorola, one from the Polish hams, 2 from Japan, one JARL and one a business. and so on... The saving grace for Amateur Radio for the most part, is that hardware available for the different digital modes can revert to 1948 analog FM.. You can fire up the DELCO spark plug 2 way land mobile that weighs about 80 pounds and talk to someone on 2 meters. Here in Kansas we have Amateurs that are on the air with Clegg 27B 2 meter transceivers. 99% of ALL VHF/UHF FM transmissions are Analog FM, even ARPS.. Maybe digitial is more popular in NYC or the mid Altantic states and California, but not here... if you want to popularize something,, make it so everyone can access it. Meaning no on eher eis hoing to spend $100 to $650 for a HT to work 1 frequency or one mode... ANALOG works... The only digital mode that makes sense for Amateurs happens to be FUSION.. It's downfall- is Yaesu rolled it out with propitiatory "WIRES-X" to sell hardware that mimics ALLSTAR at much higher cost.. HOWEVER -Fusion offers AMS... Automatic Mode Selection, so that their repeaters can handle cross mode QSO.. one guy with Fusion and one with ANALOG and they won't know the difference... Fusion like WSJT-X can be decoded right into the noise, so a noisy signal becomes full quieting. Therefore everyone is "full quieting".. and repeaters can be accessed where analog signals would "not make it" A tremendous advantage regarding "weak signal" typically HT's being used. Fusion also sends the callsign of the station digitally, meaning the necessity to ID is unnecessary. for those DMR proponents DMR does not ID with a callsign. It's to bad Yaesu went down it's WIRES-X path and didn't incorporate ALLSTAR. Had they, they would be top dog in the digital wars. as ALLSTAR is 25+ times more popular than that of WIRES-X. Now that I've said all that, if someday W0VFW joins the Sunflower Net, which I'm sure they are for.. it would be best to go with ALLSTAR, not M17. Fact- just listen to W0VFW/R on 145.27. It's linked to ALLSTAR, the Blind hams net. A quite sophisticated network with D-star, Fusion and DMR bridges.. These Blind guys know good audio. Trust me on that one.. some hear a Tone on the network and will tell you the frequency.. Can you do that? I can't. I have my repeater a fusion machine on 442.00 in a test mode till I get the rest of the tower up at my ranch.. I live alone and the last thing on my list every day is finishing the tower and I never get through the list..Currently it's on an antenna 20 feet above ground. things will change when it gets to 65 feet. Since I am sole owner of my machine I can do as I want. I also have 2 commercial repeaters.. (Ritron Patriots) 30 watt jobs, i will probably put on the tower under the ham antenna and run GMRS. The quandary the club has... IS this.... Placing the UHF repeater on SUNFLOWER Net is like having it on K-LINK -very little traffic. The VHF repeater on BLIND Hams is the most active repeater in Wichita. BUT- It is NOT attracting new members.. New members not only replace those dying off but infuse manpower and money, much needed to meet our mission to serve Veterans, their Family and the community. As the club falls under the VFW umbrella. To attract new members is to replace years old.. belong to the club and you can use the autopatch... to belng a member in the club and you can get codes to access the entire ALLSTAR NETWORK... That may increase membership. Our complete HF 600 watt station and beam does not. Then perhaps program the Blind Hams attached repeater to Sunflower which would require club approval... or set it up so that it sits on Blind hams but can be toggled to sunflower (also AMRRON) for things like their net. There are multiple nets during the week on Blind hams. About 5 or 6 that I know of... But that is up to the club to approve and implement. I don't have say...my now 17 year investment has had virtually no return. If I wasn't a life member of the ARRL, I wouldn't pay annual dues there.. i have not belonged to the NRA for 20 year or more either.. I'm a life member of the VFW, and I do pay annual dues to the American Legion as the dues cover the only watering hole in Mulvane where I live and I can bicycle to the post it's 2 miles. W0VFW is 21 air miles and 25 miles to drive each way for me.. So.... I'm fat and happy. I can get into Sunflower via ALLSTAR or fusion hot spots at my home. I can even listen to both at the same time along with Mulvane police dispatch and have 2 more hot spots if I want to "dial up" my buddies back east, or the morning coffee club (W6EK ALLSTAR 51018) and hear them all at the same time. Then I have 3 HF rigs.. One- my Yaesu FT817 backpack. That is set on 146.85 KAN-OKLA.. that repeater is only 2000 feet north of me. So, I suspect M17 will never even become more than a foot note in the annals of ham radio history. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.. Merry Christmas to all.... Larry W8LM |
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Sunflower was Re: How to Let Kids Talk with Santa Over Ham Radio This Holiday Season
When K-link announced sunset years ago, Sunflower was set up to do statewide linking.
There’s been a little interest but very little do. The do part is simple. Connect your device on any mode desired to any mode the system offers. One solution is to make an M17 repeater, the first in this State, and join that way. There’s grant money for such as this and help online and in Oklahoma, home of the first in that State. The goal has been a statewide network such as Alabama, Illinois, Oklahoma, and others have. I still believe in Santa and this goal. At any rate, tomorrow, Echolink, Echophone, Droidstar are three modes to use on your PC, tablet, or phone to participate. 73 -- Lloyd Colston, KC5FM SunflowerNet.us Hamshack Hotline 50052 |
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Re: How to Let Kids Talk with Santa Over Ham Radio This Holiday Season
On Thu, Nov 28, 2024 at 09:09 PM, TRACIE WA5LSH wrote:
It is locked on to K-LINK and that's been defunked for over 2 years... The SD controller card needs to be removed and modified to access Sunflower net instead of K-LINK.. Prior to 2015 when I was president- the club paid the K-link guys to program it.. The repeater was gone to someones test bench fo r3 or more months. The server password to ALLSTAR LINK was kept a secret by the K-LINK boys so only they could allow repeaters to access the system.. So a bogey couldn't get into K-link, our repeater or any other in the system. So effectively the software is locked down.. If it accesses the internet, it sees that K-link is not there and reverts to the "not connected to the internet" mode. That is how it is operating now. 1. The fix is to pull the SD card.. 2. Read the files on a LINUX machine as reading the card on a Microsoft machine is gibberish.. 3. Reverse engineer the program versus the "stock program" to see how they locked it up.. a. Turned off commands b. made it automatically connect upon power up. 4. Then once that all is reverse engineered, change the access (dial up) from K-link to Sunflower . 5. Then convert from Static IP protocol to dynamic IP, as G4-G5 wireless internet does not support port forwarding. a. that means before the K-link boys could dial into the machine remotely for updating and control- like if the K-link network was being interfered with. b. because wireless Internets are "double NATed" control telemetry cannot be done over the internet, but must be done by RF link- legal on the input because it's above 222mhz. FCC rule. The Fusion repeater has 2 receivers so one could be used as a control channel. Doing control on the repeater input requires that the control transmitter be stronger than any interfering signal. Any idiot with Linux ability could "program it" it's the reverse engineering, debugging, removal and return. The engineering part require intimate knowledge of the ALLSTAR Programing.. How it works, far beyond the knowledge it takes just to build and program a node. That in my estimation requires perhaps hundreds of hours of time. To do it right... as the problem is the K-link people and a reason for it's demise is that everything was a secret and they demanded that all repeaters in their system would be Motorola DMR. They documented nothing, our K-link repeater is one of a kind internally modified, and It all ready caught on fire once and I spend a week maybe more during covid resurrecting it. That episode cause conflict in the club by the way. The club instead by vote bought 2 Fusion repeaters, as the VERTEX was killed when Motorola bough them from Yaesu.. Then sold off one of the Fusion repeaters. This is one of the reasons I am no longer a member of the club. 50 chiefs and 1 Indian. Everything done by vote or committee. No redundancy, And I mean no redundancy, meaning someone "reprograms" the repeater, no one else knows what was done when the guy that did all the work get hits by a bus. NO documentation. No group project.. As we have seen last 6-8 years conflicts, that I have never seen in any of the 15-20 ham clubs I belonged to in my 59 years of being a ham elsewhere in the USA. My recommendation.. get a Grant like the 146.94 boys did and have Motorola build a machine.. Except Motorola will refuse to sell to hams.. too much a problem since, they are all narrow band now and ham is wide band.. and Bridgecomm is being sued. failure to warranty, let alone is pure Chinese crap in a Kansas City box. I have bills to pay, walls to paint, taxes to pay, doctors to see, I'm even tired of brushing my own teeth for the last 70 years every day.. I'm not going to take on rebuilding an Edsel that been wrecked and burned, to enter it in a race to find out it's really a demolition derby Bah Humbug to all...... off to Black Friday Shopping.... Larry W8LM... |
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How to Let Kids Talk with Santa Over Ham Radio This Holiday Season
QST de ARRL Letter Nov 27,2024:
How to Let Kids Talk with Santa Over Ham Radio This Holiday Season | | | | Santa Claus will be on the amateur radio airwaves again this year. ? The 3.916 Santa Net will be on the air every night at 7:00 PM CST from November 29 through December 24. Reserve a spot with Santa by making a pre-net check in. You can check in each night starting at 6:30 PM CST online at www.CQSanta.com. ? Santa and Mrs. Claus will also beon the air, together, thanks to special arrangements with the Cowley County Amateur Radio Club in Kansas. They will be on the air on the 147.000 repeater and the Sunflower Net system, between 10 AM and noon CST on November 30 and beginning at 10 AM until band conditions change on December 14 and 21. In addition to the local repeater, the Sunflower Net offers connection options to Allstar, DMR, Dstar, Echolink, Fusion, Hamshack Hotline, M17, and P25. The club is also setting up a radio link at the local library to talk to Santa. A special effort is being made to give children who are hospitalized or otherwise unable to visit personally an opportunity to reach out to Santa. NNNN Larry W8LM P.S. (1)? If desired, we could switch W0VFW repeater from Blind Hams on Allstar to Sunflower Net system during the? Saturdays Nov 30th, December 14 and 21, while Santa is on the air 10am to Noon. (2) our W0VFW group.io newest member Lloyd KC5CM in Arc City, is a big shot on Sunflower Net system... |
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Fw: AmRRON???AmRRON News & Alerts???On The Brink of WW3 (again?) -- Assessment and Action Items for 'What If'
On The Brink of WW3 (again?) -- Assessment and Action Items for 'What If'
AmRRON|AmRRON News & Alerts|by John Jacob Schmidt What if conflict spreads and reaches the US? Grid up, or grid down. Full posting at: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . //EOM// → view on teamapp.com | | | | | | | | | | | Team App | Sign up or log in to Stack Team App | Team App is a platform that allows teams and groups to improve communication by creating their very own smartpho... | | | | | | | | | | | | | | AmRRON | | | Stack Team App This email was sent by Stack Team App on behalf of AmRRON. To receive notifications via the app and to access all of Stack Team App's great features, please download Stack Team App and sign-up via the links below. Get the App|Terms|Privacy|Unsubscribe |
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4 Small items for sale..
Just a quick note.... I have a number of small items for sale. I didn't go to Ardmore OK hamfest this year. (OK city- Tulsa - Dallas 1/2 way between 2 day hamfest). So someone may want something to play with over winter..
MFJ 259B - new nicad batteries, new power pack...sold new for $259 without nicads and power pack. Asking? $180? TYT 350 3 band 5 watt Talkie- 2 antennas (144/440 and 222)? stand up charger.. Ham band Xmit only. Bought it new, looks new still in the box. Used maybe 2 hours. Cannot be programmed with CHIRP -the secret they don't tell you till after the purchase. But RT has $$ programming for it..TYT programming is free.? .Asking $30 SDR play RSP1A wide band SDR receiver. USB connection to computer. 1khz to 2Ghz coverage... Made in England $117USD.. Very popular.....Asking $80 RTL-SDR genuine V3 SDR dongle. This is the size of a pack of gum and direct plug into a USB computer port. Many hams use it to add a spectrum analyzer- panoramic display to their HF rig.. Asking $25. The MFJ259 and SDRplay was part of an estate purchase. I have my own MFJ259 had it 20 years. Great piece of test gear. We can meet up a my place, your place or somewhere in Wichita, KS.. Reply off groups.io to my email address - am_fm_radio@... Enjoy the holidays.... Larry W8LMARRL Life member - Licensed 59 years. |
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Re: rain thwarted tower install this weekend..
Michael,
These hotspots... we use the same term for 2 different types.. 1. is 2.5 or 5 Ghz wifi (wireless network connections) to the internet-- your Internet service provider.. 2. is a ham radio single channel low powered transceiver that converts a ham radio signal to wifi or network connection for accessing the internet.. I use #2 in my shack so I can use a talkie locally and go into the internet then get on the Blind hams network...Talkie to home internet to Blind hams. then you can hear me on W0VFW repeater when the repeater re-transmits Blind hams.. The #1 method is to provide a internet connection in my car, where I can also use #2 to make connections and come out just about any where in the world.. the actual radio link i use in either case is maybe 5 to 50 feet... If I use W0VFW repeater to get into Blind hams my actual radio link is 21 miles from my house to the VFW repeater.. In any case, todays technology with linking --somewhere between point A and B.. you're on the air.. It may be in NYC.. Where as with you beam array you are going direct..RF all the way... You my find with some of that weak signal digital modes.. you may be able to work moon bounce when the moon is near the horizon... Here's some info on it... . |
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rain thwarted tower install this weekend..
Well, rain thwarted my continuing the tower install..
Instead i worked on what will be a mobile install- hotspot.. etc.. I mentioned ha tI picked up a 4G LTE hotspot? and decided to set it up for use in my new FORD as I'm not sure what eventually will be my mobile set up.. Here's the latest... i picked up a Fanklin T9 4G LTE hotspot on Ebay... they are labeled as T-mobile and are new in the box, and unlocked.You buy them outright for just under $20...Here is the link from the vendor There are other vendors selling the units.. Make sure they ar eunlocked or the vendor tells you the unlock proceedure. They are GSM-- so they will work on T-mobile or AT&T type networks.. Boost, Mint, Tello, Cricket as some of the cell companies that use GSM and therefore AT&T or T-mobile towers. You have to get a SIM card from a carrier, plug it in activate it and then pair it to a amateur radio hotsopt.. I used Tello.. the have a DATA only plan 5Gbps a month for $10.. now they don; cut you off, they only throttle you during high uses periods --unless you buy more data... i have been told 5Gbps is plenty for? ham radio use.. It's about the same as listening to podcasts, and 5Gbps gets you 135 hours of pod casts according to one advertiser.. Tello web site I used to sign up and order the SIM is: I signed up for 5Gb DATA - NO minutes (talk and text)? for $10 per month.. Now when they arrived and I set i tup an activated it .. only 15 minutes on the computer..? I needed to pair it with a ham radio type hot spot. it can be MMDMV or OPENSpOT - for digital work... or ALLSTAR for Analog HT's and such.. An analog hot spot that does Allstar and Echolink is the? Shari, but there are others.. it can be pretty inexpensive Raspberry PI 3A+ and a sound card dongle that can be made for under $50.. You could also use a smart phone and cellphone app like DV switch.. My openspot 2 allows me to transcode Fusion to DMR and back again... The open spot 2 is n longer made, but still supported.. The MMDMV's can be found on ebay, amazon, Temu and banggood.. I have one as a kit but I have not played with it. I like Hamkit products.. SHARI's and Dinah..products.. Now regarding the club..? The VHF repeater is on ALLSTAR Blind hams.. Te UHF wa son K-LINK and K-LINK is now defunct.. Howerver there is another KANSAS STATE type network that seems no tto have the politics of the former K-link It's Called Sunflower Net.... ? ? The possibility that the club ma want to place o the UHF repeater as a suggestion...Here is the "poop" sheet on Sunflower Net...? I have been told, the Quarter Century Wireless has it's nets there. So does skywarn.. Finally as on November 6th..? I will have been licensed going on into my 59th years. November 6th 1966.. ?. |
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Re: Proposal Federal Legislation
Chuck-
OCCOM's Razor----The simplest explaination is usually the correct one.. It is a HOAX... The FCC about 2 -3 years ago became "self funding" in other words, unlike Iraq, Germany, Japan, Mexic, the US government is not giving them a dime. Therefore the FCC instituted fees to raise revenue to pay the staff they reduced by 1/3. They are making money hand over fist with people mailing in $35 checks for GMRS licenses what cost them pennies to post on the internet. So family business can make even more money.. Now in their infinate wisdom, they do not license CBers as like motorcycle gangs, the FCC is afraid of them. They do however exploit Amateur Radio because of the school yard picking Hams have been know for for 100 years. There would be no need for collecting fees from Amateurs who can not conduct busienss, when the FCC gets 10 times the money from GMRS and even more if they were to license CBers.. A requirement by international law that is ignored as part of the 2 tiered government justice system. If the FCC were to in force violations and collect fines, they woul dall be driving $90,000 Tesla's, Corvettes, Mercedes, or Land Rovers. And don't claim enforcement is tough when people for instance build, sell, buy, and brag about their CB linear amps on Facebook, or any other blog that caters to that group. Legally it's prima facea evidence of violating the law and could be handled like shooting fish in a bucket.. Taxing unused repeaters is as hokey as taxing antenna's..... There is a movement under the forestry service,by tree huggers who want to remove all repeaters, including state police repeaters from federal land.. It's Black Lives matters merging with the moon bat tree huggers, wanting all mountain tops pristine for bald eagles and grizzley bears. To them all radio towers are unsightly and radiate evil radio waves.. Their ignorance shows when they hold their $1400 Iphone to their ear to call their dope dealer.. or their mommy as to why they didn't send the allowance this week. |
Larry Macionski
Lloyd Colston