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Graphic diagrams
Hi all,
? ? ?Are there any graphic diagrams showing the interrelationships by even the major block components?? Maybe in microsoft visio, Or in UML, BPMN?? Using any type of object-oriented design software to produce a graphical view. I think would be doing this whole series.Of programs great justice.? I make it a bit easier. You can piece it all together. According to the need, then nothing but rich in diagrams.
And code blocks.
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Rory. W4RJG
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Rory Griffin? W4RJG ARES EC, Halifax County, VA |
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Re: Is Simplicity Possible?
Hi David, -- I see we have the choice of 800 or 900 mhz OR also listed is 433 mhz.
I'm thinking 433 might be better in my area due to vegetation etc.
Anyone got an opinion? For unlicensed folks, the only real choice is 900MHz.? 433MHz and 800MHz are ISM bands in other regions, but not North America.? If everyone was a ham, 433 would be an option and provide for a much better link budget but if everyone is unlicensed 900MHz will keep it legal.? Also high gain antennas for 900MHz are much cheaper and smaller. -- Has anybody actually used a Lilygo T Deck? Does it actually work?
This is a stand alone unit (similar to what I described several messages
up), with self contained keyboard etc and not requiring a cell phone.
Just thinking one set of batteries is enough to keep charged in an
emergency situation. Yes and Yes*.? The Asterisk on the second Yes is because the device works okay with the mainline firmware, but the user interface is pretty bad since it's the same interface as the little nodes with OLED screens and 3 buttons.? You can send and receive messages via the built-in keyboard.? The device has to be configured with the phone app over bluetooth though. ?There is a highly experimental graphical firmware for this device and it's pretty neat but missing some features.? One caveat is it has to be configured on the device itself so inputting encryption keys is a major pain.? You can't just scan a QR code on a phone like with the standard firmware.? The firmware isn't being built/published so you have to compile it yourself or find someone who already has. This is my T-Deck in a 3d printed case with a 3p 18650 Li-Ion battery.? It lasts about a week between charges but it's quite thick with that much battery.? The new version that comes with a case and battery pack included is probably easier for your non-technical folks. I wouldn't suggest a T-Deck with either firmware as an only meshtastic device.? It's a great "interface device" but your antennas are limited since you carry it around.? If you pair it with a Heltec v3 or something similar with a high-gain antenna up high, the Heltec can forward anything over the mesh to the T-Deck. -- Would really like to hear from anyone with actualy experience in this
group with meshtastic. I've spoken to some meshtastic only guys, they
were very excited about things that as a ham don't blow my dress up at
all (ranges of 300 yrds etc), simply because they've never been exposed
to ham ranges and capabilities. That's why I am leaning towards?
ham-type solution even if it's more complex. Like anything else with a radio in it, range is entirely dependent on your antenna situation and the path.? A tiny compromised antenna might only go 300 yards, kind of like the rubber duck on an FRS radio.? If you mount the radio outside on a mast with an 8dbi omni antenna right above it (to minimize coax loss) you are going to have a much better time.? If you are at the periphery of the covered area, going with a high gain beam will do even better.? Multi-mile links aren't hard with a good antenna, and tens of miles aren't too difficult if both antennas are up high with clear line of sight.? Also, remember, it's a mesh so you can talk to stations. 3-4 hops away.? You don't need a clear line of sight to everyone else in the mesh. Consider that a couple decades ago it was very common for WISPs to use 900MHz because it could penetrate foliage better than 2.4 or 5GHz.? They were running wifi over 4-8MHz wide channels and going 10 or so miles with multi-megabit speeds while staying within the limitations of the ISM bands.? LoRA is much more of a weak-signal mode than 802.11 wifi and the limitations are identical.? The robustness of the protocol gives it a range advantage. My suggestion is to design and build the way the WISP people do.? Put an antenna as high as you can with the radio mounted next to it to minimize coax loss.? The only real difference is I would suggest using an omni antenna if you can so that your node can extend the mesh.? If an omni doesn't have enough gain, then a yagi or panel-type beam is the way to go.? Antennas are cheap for this band.? Really cheap. 73, Ben - KU0HN
On Friday, December 20th, 2024 at 1:13 PM, David Clark via groups.io <cw.w4trj@...> wrote:
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Re: Is Simplicity Possible?
David Clark
Ben --
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And anyone else actually familiar with meshtastic aside from watching youtube vids (like me) ---
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-- I see we have the choice of 800 or 900 mhz OR also listed is 433 mhz. I'm thinking 433 might be better in my area due to vegetation etc. Anyone got an opinion?
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-- Has anybody actually used a Lilygo T Deck? Does it actually work? This is a stand alone unit (similar to what I described several messages up), with self contained keyboard etc and not requiring a cell phone. Just thinking one set of batteries is enough to keep charged in an emergency situation.
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-- Would really like to hear from anyone with actualy experience in this group with meshtastic. I've spoken to some meshtastic only guys, they were very excited about things that as a ham don't blow my dress up at all (ranges of 300 yrds etc), simply because they've never been exposed to ham ranges and capabilities. That's why I am leaning towards? ham-type solution even if it's more complex.
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BUT
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I am open minded on the meshtastic, because as stated I "want" to like it. I'm just not convinced it really works.?
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Ben you're saying it really works. Do you know this first-hand? Not doubting you, just clarifying.?
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Thank you --
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DC
W4TRJ
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Re: Why is NOAM in the route @EU?
I agree with Charles? ?We don¡¯t want the post office delivery running all over in this busy cold time of year. Hello George Kirn had contact with this data. On Fri, Dec 20, 2024 at 9:58?AM Charles Hargrove via <n2nov=[email protected]> wrote: My system routes all @EU bulletins to my European forwarding partners only. |
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Re: Is Simplicity Possible?
Hi David, I know Meshtastic has been mentioned before, but I think this could work and is probably the best solution given requirement that users are unlicensed.? I do realize that ISM bands do have constraints around path and link budget, but there are ways around that.? Meshtastic repeaters are absolutely a thing and can be installed with some height to get some initial coverage.? Store-and-forward nodes can be installed in weatherproof enclosures outdoors (including solar and battery power as standard features on the radios) to extend coverage.? High-gain antennas are cheap and readily available so users can put a big yagi (and their radio) outdoors and increase range that way too.? I'll detail how this might look to the users by responding to your parameters.
This sounds like a challenging project.? Good Luck. 73, Ben KU0HN
On Friday, December 20th, 2024 at 8:35 AM, David Clark via groups.io <cw.w4trj@...> wrote:
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Re: Why is NOAM in the route @EU?
My system routes all @EU bulletins to my European forwarding partners only.
toggle quoted message
Show quoted text
On 12/20/2024 7:48 AM, Chuck Gelm wrote:
On 12/20/24 07:37, Mark Taylor wrote:On Mon, Dec 9, 2024 at 04:22 AM, Chuck Gelm wrote:All: --
Charles J. Hargrove - N2NOV NYC-ARECS/RACES Citywide Radio Officer/Skywarn Coord. NYC-ARECS/RACES Nets 441.100/136.5 PL ARnewsline Broadcast Mon. @ 8:00PM NYC-ARECS Weekly Net Mon. @ 8:30PM NY-NBEMS Net Saturdays @ 10AM & USeast-NBEMS Net Wednesdays @ 7PM on 7.036 Mhz USB (alt 3.536)/1500 hz waterfall spot; MFSK-16 or 32 "Information is the oxygen of the modern age. It seeps through the walls topped by barbed wire, it wafts across the electrified borders." - Ronald Reagan "The more corrupt the state, the more it legislates." - Tacitus "Molann an obair an fear" - Irish Saying (The work praises the man.) "No matter how big and powerful government gets, and the many services it provides, it can never take the place of volunteers." - Ronald Reagan |
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Re: Is Simplicity Possible?
David Clark
¿ªÔÆÌåÓý? ? ? ?Good morning-- Perhaps I should clarify what I mean by "simpicity:" For this purpose, the overarching goal is to create a method to communicate to a relatively small group of people in an agricultural amd sparsely populated area.? These people have shared interests and some common goals and obstacles. They are far from town and government help, they are self-reliant, they are problem-solvers, they look out for and help each other. If you're familiar with the best of old-school small-town America (I recognize some have never seen this), ?these are the people I'm talking about. The problem to be solved is how to create a means to communicate over a radius of 5-10 miles. Live voice contact has been already solved via a GMRS repeater. So, here are parameters I'm asking feedback on: ? (I'll say thank you to those already offering excellent feedback so far.) 1. a BBS type system -- meaning a way to distribute messages and/or short bulletins to a group of people. These messages can be retrieved at any time. Henceforth in this writing we will call this "the software." 2. Accessible via RF only, not dependent on Internet or cellular network. Ideally not dependent on a valid Amateur Radio call sign. 3. The software will be easy to install. "Easy" means one click and the installer does the rest, without the user having to be a computer jock. Some config info to be filled in by user. Assume the client install will happen on some number of different machines, say 25 for sake of discussion. If one says "this type of install cannot be done," I refer you to essentially any Mac software in the last 37 years of my own experience, or the Winlink install I did last month. This is not an attempt to debate Mac vs any other platform. It's simply an illustration of the desired parameter. 4. The BBS software and radio runs all the time. 5. The "client" connects when desired as simply as possible -- turn on radio to a given frequency/channel, start client software, click connect button, login, retrieve messages. Interact further, or not.? 6. The BBS's of 1989 era were previously mentioned as the model because they were straight to the point. Form followed function. No draperies in the cabin. No doubt there was a lot going on behind the scenes, but anyone back then witnessed little old ladies accessing them easily. Simple. They were small and fast enough, performing excellent work over 1200 baud modems.? 7. Thats it. Some will say nobody will use it. That is not the question I'm posing. While it may be a valid rabbit trail for the cynical, it's not under consideration. The focus is on what CAN be done, not on what people will or will not do. My neighbors do remarkable things all the time, from helping to birth calves to helping put out grass fires, to spur-of-the-moment cooking for 200. This doesn't count growing and harvesting crops and keeping the monstrous machines running to do that. 8. Additionally, I'm requesting the collective brainpower to create something that can be used anywhere in the country, as a way for similarly situated groups to retain some semblance of community in times of adversity. The scenes we've seen play out in western NC provide plenty of examples of adversity bringing out amazing response by common people, and also give an idea of how helpful something like this could have been had it been in place. When one has zero "normal" comms or outside help, anything will be better than that. Thanks to all, DC W4TRJ On Dec 20, 2024, at 1:11 AM, Jim Wagner via groups.io <wagnejam99@...> wrote:
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Re: Why is NOAM in the route @EU?
¿ªÔÆÌåÓýOn 12/20/24 07:37, Mark Taylor wrote:
All: Until I hear that the above is not true, I am placing GB7RJJ in my BADWORDS.SYS file. 73, Chuck |
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Re: Why is NOAM in the route @EU?
On Mon, Dec 9, 2024 at 04:22 AM, Chuck Gelm wrote:
Why is NOAM in the route @EU? Mystery solved.?? Because that is exactly what the forwarding station intends.? His opinion is all stations get all bulletins regardless how they are addressed.
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73,
Mark, N5MDT
Montgomery, Texas
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Re: Is Simplicity Possible?
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A "simple BBS" does not necessarily make a simple system. Creating messages, sending them, receiving messages, and reading them all contribute to the complexity. ?Some of those contribute more complexity than the BBS. So, think about the whole system, because the parts need to fit together seamlessly. One model of simplicity is the cellular text message system. You could do worse (a lot worse) than that and few would use it.
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Jim, KA7EHK
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Re: Is Simplicity Possible?
David Clark
500' real good. The 2m I got going is at 350' amd we do pretty good.?
No idea how well I can do with just regular people. I have a nasty habit of thinking positive when it sometimes is not warranted, amd have utterly failed at several things. But Ive also had some astonishing successes as well.?
Old man told me once when I was dejected after a failure "well you tried and nobody else did. The only guarantee is you miss every shot you dont take."? So, there's that.?
ive tried and succeeded and failed at a bunch of stuff most people never attempt. I always learn something and I aint basing my well-being on what other people do. It needs to be done, there's interest, I'm gonna see what happens. I'll let you know if it's a bust.?
thanks
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DC
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Re: Is Simplicity Possible?
¿ªÔÆÌåÓýIt¡¯s not my repeater. We were provided some services from an antenna at 500 feet that is managed with a circulator so a whole slew of things can be on it. ?I have a VARA digiPeter at the same height as part of that thing? Over seven years of effort, I have several RMSs ?in the ?community and several digipeaters for various modes? But I can count on my fingers the number of people who can really use them. Even some a RRL officials can¡¯t figure this out! ?Or won¡¯t? Just for comparison, our club scored in the upper 6.5% of the ?4A category inARRL field day and we¡¯re not a contest club ¡. ?We are an Aries group. ?If this is all that I can achieve with a nationally ranking group, what do you think will happen with just community people? Gordon kx4z? On Dec 19, 2024, at 20:15, David Clark via groups.io <cw.w4trj@...> wrote:
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Re: Is Simplicity Possible?
David Clark
Gordon
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I have some uncommon folks here. And common folks can do some amazing stuff when trying to save their own family's butt
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Well acquainted with Lora and huge potential but i cannot imagine it working with low antennas thru our pines and slight hills, and all we'd have is text msgs. Same effort will yield better on GMRS and ham
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How tall is your GMRS antenna and what repeater amd power are you running?
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thanks
DC |
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Re: Is Simplicity Possible?
¿ªÔÆÌåÓýNo, but we had a guy do a demonstration. It might do what you want and I think you don¡¯t have to have a license. It¡¯s really slow. I don¡¯t know if you could make a bulletin board out of it, but I think it can handle some messages. You¡¯re really asking way too much ofcommon people.?On Dec 19, 2024, at 20:05, David Clark via groups.io <cw.w4trj@...> wrote:
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Re: Is Simplicity Possible?
¿ªÔÆÌåÓýI think you should look into LoRaTrying to get even a reasonable percentage of the population onto digital Anything is a pretty high ask. Voice is about all most people can handle.? Legally, GRMS offers good voice communications over a wide range, we can cover our entire huge county with it with a highly placed repeater. If that were to come down, we can have alternatives show up the vast majority of people even in ham radio can¡¯t figure out digital. Thank you for your willingness to try. Gordon kx4z On Dec 19, 2024, at 18:21, Steve Hansen via groups.io <shansen@...> wrote:
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Re: Is Simplicity Possible?
Yep, I experienced Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico, and that was a major wake-up call to the ham community there.? Now they have an island-wide packet network as a result, and a lot of GMRS repeaters have gone up.
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Maybe a sort of old-school setup, using voice instead of data, like cludging together an answering machine using a computer?? And license-free FRS radios because that's simpler and cheap??? Audio-input to the computer triggers automatic recording to mp3 or wav files.? The trick would be how to retrieve voice messages by users and how to get each recorded message identifiable as for specific users.? Maybe DTMF by using their keypad on their radio (if it has a keypad).? On second thought, it sounds really complicated :)? Just brain-storming here... |
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Re: Is Simplicity Possible?
David Clark
Jeff
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Thanks so much for a clear answer. I'm sorry i'm such a dunce on this. I've been a CW man all my ham career and this stuff is not as well documented as I'd like even tho it's been around for a long time.
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Thanks for answering what the "client" needs also. Somebody upstream mentioned a HP refurb tho I think most will have a computer
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The question of data over gmrs is a question -- it seems that FCC has said "a little is ok" type of thing.? We are in a rural area and I doubt there's been any signal ever before in history over GMRS in our area aside from me and my wife. So I'm gonna risk seeing if it will work.
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the callsign thing -- as you may know you cannot download winlink without an active callsign and from what I know the winlink system actually verifies when you want to download.?
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I have tried fldigi using a callsign on one end and a first initial and last name on the other, and that works. Dont know if it will work with easyterm but intend to find out.
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Maybe I shouldn't talk about it.
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Anyway, I intend to try to find something that will work so my neighbors won't be stuck with nothing like a couple of friends in NC were the first week of Helene. It almost literally drove one friend crazy, an older recent widow, who stilll hasn't really recovered from not knowing anything but what she could see for a week (and what she saw was pretty bad).? I just saw her last week and she is still quite shook up from the experience and it's been 2 months. She says you just cannot imagine how bad it is to see damage and injury and reach for your phone and have nothing over and over and over.
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I'm all for following regs, I pay my taxes, etc and operate within the guidelines in my life. But there is such a thing as "the radio community" and if we know (and most of us do know) that radio gets through when all else fails, then we have a great opportunity to view making some of this stuff work easily and maybe-not-regulation just in case we need to use it. I guess we just can't talk about it, but we still need to do it, because anyone paying attention to western NC and Helene has seen that hams contributed mightily up there to search and rescue (still are I believe).
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I know Mt Mitchell repeater did amazing work. I was involved for a short period one afternoon on an impromptu Health and Welfare net looking for people, us taking requests on HF, relaying via 2m to Mt. Mitchell, them relaying to hams with handhelds in the disaster area, and various hams going and putting eyes on people and reporting back to Mt. Mitchell, who then called the worried family members. Pretty amazing to be part of that and really got me thinking about my own area.
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Not all the helping "hams" were licensed, but we all know the regs state that anybody anywhere can use any radio any time if it involves life and property. So it got used for that, and people were helped. We have to acknowledge that was a good thing, I think, no matter how much we obey the rules.?
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Meshtastic. I really really want to like this platform. The mesh network idea (much I believe initially fleshed out by Zigbee) is something I have followed pretty close, tho haven't actually done it. Too much fiddling still to do to make it work. Also my area of interest is say a 5-7 mile radius with lots of pine trees and slightly rolling hills with the occasional fairly large hill. I don't see any way mestastic will work in its current mode even if you could buy an off-the-shelf unit that works, which I'm not sure you can do (except maybe a LilyGo T or similar, and last I checked they didn't have a damn case for it).?
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I've put up a GMRS repeater on my farm with the intention of getting as many of my neighbors using as possible. Shouldn't be hard to do --- we have recently begun building a neighborhood group (people love to cook and eat together), and Hurricane Helene was heading straight for us and veered off at last minute and went 20 miles east. It destroyed a lot of south and east GA, and all of us have seen the damage and most know somebody affected badly (or killed) by it. We all know it could have been us, and it got everybody's attention pretty well. I just started a month-long weekly technician license class at church 3 weeks ago, and we had 14 people show up from 3 different counties. Everyone in the class knows somebody in NC affected by Helene and it got their attention. Our little county has currently 3 hams who know how to operate, the rest have died off. So by New Year's Day we should have another 10 or so, and I'll begin another class the next week.
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The initial goal is get as many as I can on GMRS and some of those will become hams, and I'm planning accordingly. We will attempt on GMRS, knowing it will work on ham freqs.?
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Really appreciate the input. Maybe the conversation will lead to other people in other areas figuring out how to get their neighbors fixed up. We know how easy it is to lose comms, and we know that nobody is coming to help us but ourselves. With that in mind, we've all got plenty to think about and do. We have a lot of collective brainpower, thanks for sharing it.
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Really appreciate this conversation and the space to have it in. Perhaps it will have far-reaching effects.
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DC
W4TRJ |
Rory Griffin, W4RJG
N9PNO
Jeff KP3FT
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