Re: New to D-Star and D-Rats (and actually to this hobby)

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To clarify, the FCC regulation is not about non-Amateur traffic.? You can chat all day about the weather, local events, etc., but not about business related matters.? For example, you can’t send an email to your office to schedule a meeting with a client. The FCC defines prohibited traffic as that which you have a pecuniary interest or financial or business related.

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John WB4QDX

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From: d-rats_group@... [mailto:d-rats_group@...]
Sent: Tuesday, June 16, 2015 8:02 AM
To: d-rats_group@...
Subject: [d-rats_group] Re: New to D-Star and D-Rats (and actually to this hobby)

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Tom,

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Please be careful sending amateur messages to non hams.? That by passes commercial business and I believe that is against regulations.? The same is true for WinLink or all that can pass internet traffic to hams and if the traffic is of a non Amateur Radio? content I???believe it is against FCC regulations and of course we don't know the content of internet messages until they are sent to us?and if not filtered?non Amateur Radio communications can be transmitted to you which is against FCC regulations.

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The automatic elay?point is also responsible for not allowing non Amateur Radio communications to be transmitted.? I sent in a NPRM (Notice of Proposed? Rule Making) to the FCC a couple of years ago to make the sender responsible? and not the automatic relay station but they didn't? accept my idea. HI .

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Please get others opinions on my comments but I?believe that is correct and thanks much for asking.

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73 de rolan w3fdk

Re: New to D-Star and D-Rats (and actually to this hobby)

#636

The communication is sent through email.

There are no violations there.

Just like you can send Winlink email to a non HAM operator and vice versa ?over RF.

Keith

kc2oon

Re: New to D-Star and D-Rats (and actually to this hobby)

#635

Tom,

Please be careful sending amateur messages to non hams.? That by passes commercial business and I believe that is against regulations.? The same is true for WinLink or all that can pass internet traffic to hams and if the traffic is of a non Amateur Radio? content I???believe it is against FCC regulations and of course we don't know the content of internet messages until they are sent to us?and if not filtered?non Amateur Radio communications can be transmitted to you which is against FCC regulations.

The automatic elay?point is also responsible for not allowing non Amateur Radio communications to be transmitted.? I sent in a NPRM (Notice of Proposed? Rule Making) to the FCC a couple of years ago to make the sender responsible? and not the automatic relay station but they didn't? accept my idea. HI .

Please get others opinions on my comments but I?believe that is correct and thanks much for asking.

73 de rolan w3fdk

New to D-Star and D-Rats (and actually to this hobby)

#634

Hi,

A few days ago I purchased my first real HT iCom ID 31A. It took me a while to get it working but now I am able to configure local CQ on our YYZ repeater or connect to some reflectors in USA. All good.?

One of the reasons I purchased D-Star was that I would have ability to send a message to and from the radio, just like Yaesu can with its APRS. The idea is that when my cell phone dies I can send a message to my fried's email account and he is not a ham operator (does not have a radio).

I have installed D-Rats today but I can not figure out how to do it. I can see that I can send and receive messages from some stations and I have chatted with someone who advised me to join this group.

He also mentioned that I need a programming cable, well I do not need to send messages to the radio when it is connected to my computer. The idea is to have a computer at home and radio in the field with no cable in between.

At this point I am thinking that this is not possible and my first clue is a simple fact that my new radio does not have a keyboard!

Please let me know what my options are.

Thank you!

Tom

P.S. I have looked at Winlink option for emergency communication but the size of the equipment and different opinions of winlink forum members deterred me from HF for a while.

Re: D-RATS RF Access Point [2 Attachments]

#633

Hi Patrick,

This isn't directly related but you might want to think about putting a VNC server (i use TightVNC) ?on that box so that when it's at the site - or even still at home you can have remote GUI ?access to the computer. ?(Unless you're already running an ssh server.) ? ?:-)?

Is port 7322 used by Wires-X?

Best regards,

Stan ? N3KDA

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On Sun, Jun 7, 2015 at 8:51 AM, n3tsz@... [d-rats_group] <d-rats_group@...> wrote:

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This is an update to a project that I have been working on.
My goal is to offer RF access to a Ratflector so field units can communicate with internet based assets. I currently have a D-STAR radio and a KISS mode TNC connected to the Ratflector. The network connection is only to another computer on a local network at this time. I have successfully tested the RF connections with club members and all is working well.

I recently discovered that D-RATS and FLDIGI running on the same computer can exchange information via TCP port 7322. This also works on a Ratflector. I am running FLDIGI on the same computer as the Ratflector and have them connected via TCP. FLDIGI is now transmitting all data coming into any of the other inputs of the Ratflector.

My question is this: What frequency and mode should the FLDIGI connection be using? My original concept was to use PSK250 on a frequency near 3580 kHz USB, into a NVIS antenna. My reasoning is that there are already FLDIGI users operating in this frequency range and they would not need additional hardware to get connected to D-RATS. It is also possible to read the chat messages with any program that decodes PSK.

Other frequencies and modes are also possible. I would welcome any suggestions regarding the implementation of the FLDIGI connection.
A drawing is attached.

Thanks for reading de Patrick (N3TSZ)

File > Connected to Internet

#632

What is the? File> Connected to Internet? for?? I can click on it and?a check mark?appears next to it and if I close Files and open again? the check mark is there and if I click on Connected to Internet the check mark goes away.

It does not seem to be an indicator that I am connected to the rat reflector.

Any info appreciated,

73 de rolan w3fdk

Re: Neep help setting up a ratflector...please!!!

[email protected]

#631

But you know what puzzles me is the repeater app is running on a Windows 8 machine fine.....

I'm going to go back into my domain name server and DDNS and make sure everything looks OK too. It's probably something I overlooked or made a mistake in.

If I figure it out, I'll let you know what I found. Someone else may experience this same very thing and this can help them......assuming I figure it out !

Doug

Re: Neep help setting up a ratflector...please!!!

#630

OK. I get it now.

I'll bet it is Windows 8. Just the fact that you have two computers running the same OS are having the same problem. I use XP, XP 64 bit, Win 7 64 bit and all of them work fine on Drats. I have yet to try Win 8.?

Keith

kc2oon

Re: Neep help setting up a ratflector...please!!!

[email protected]

#629

The repeater program is running on a desk machine with no problems. Just running the D-Rats Communication Tool program on the laptops to access the ratflector. They are the ones that seem to? go dormant. There may even be something in the Communication Tool app that ignores a machine after no activity for a period of time.

Still scratching my head on this one.....

Re: Neep help setting up a ratflector...please!!!

#628

Windows 8 may indeed be the problem. I didn't even try to set up the repeater on my Win 8 laptop.?

I would suggest not running the repeater program on a laptop anyway. It may not be the best platform for running a 24/7 service on assuming that was your plan.?

I did my experiments on the laptop and got my bearings straight on the software. I then transferred that knowledge to the PI for 24/7/365 service. ?

Keith

kc2oon

Re: Neep help setting up a ratflector...please!!!

[email protected]

#627

Well, I now think the DDNS is NOT the issue. I turned off the tracking program and without any IP address changes it still happed. I'll keep plugging away at it until I get it figured out.

The repeater app is not going off line. Just two laptops. It may well be a setting in Windows 8.

Thanks Keith.

Doug

Re: Neep help setting up a ratflector...please!!!

#626

That would most likely be the problem.

You absolutely need a static IP address for this system to work properly.

Hope I could help out a bit. If not, maybe someone will find this thread when they are having a problem.

Keith

kc2oon

Re: Neep help setting up a ratflector...please!!!

[email protected]

#625

Thanks. I think the issue my be my DDNS service checking the ip address for tracking purposes and causing the issue. I'm looking into that now.

I like the?PI idea...a lot. I have a DVAP and PI running now in the shack! For now though, I better take on one battle at a time if you know what I mean!

Doug

Re: Neep help setting up a ratflector...please!!!

#624

My small laptop I had running the repeater I don't think had that problem. Never that I saw while testing for about a week.?It runs windows XP 32 bit.

I opted for a Raspberry running the app because it's a $35 solution that uses almost no power and runs on the same 12vdc back up power I have set up for my router when the power goes out.

Keith

kc2oon

Re: Neep help setting up a ratflector...please!!!

[email protected]

#623

Keith - Have you had any problems with laptops just going to sleep, so to speak, while running the D-Rats app? What I mean is they stay connected but cannot ping, send or receive anything including a simple chat message. This is happening with two laptops. I have all of the power saving settings (I can find) turned off. I have the hard drives set to never sleep. No hibernation enabled. I can close the application and reopen it and all is fine but if you leave the laptop just connected and "monitoring", the same thing happens within 10 or 15 minutes.

I have to believe there is some setting I am overlooking. Any ideas?

Thanks again !

Doug

WB4CDH

Re: Neep help setting up a ratflector...please!!!

#622

We do the same thing here for ARES/RACES/Skywarn in Ocean County NJ.

We don't have the repeater here tied up all the time with the D-rats either. I simply enable the radio port when we need it.?

I only added being able to do it remotely for you in case your repeater application was running on a PC that was in a location not easily accessed.

Keith

kc2oon

Re: Neep help setting up a ratflector...please!!!

[email protected]

#621

Thanks Keith but what I was talking about was simply getting the D-Star radio to work with the Repeater application. I was trying to follow the online instructions that are out of date. When I simply added the port the radio was on, it all worked.

I don't want it gating to rf all of the time but when we do need it for backup emergency communications to our local shelters, hospitals, etc., it will be a nice backup when the internet goes down. Here on the Florida panhandle, we can't always rely on internet service when a hurricane hits!

Thanks again for your help.

Doug

Re: Neep help setting up a ratflector...please!!!

#620

That's not hard actually.

If you can access the computer running the ratflector remotely over the internet via a secure remote connection, you simply enable the port on the ratflector that the radio is assigned by the computer.?

I do this using using Teamviewer free software.

I access my home PC via Teamviewer, use Microsoft remote desktop on there to access my Raspberry Pi running the Ratflector, then simply enable the com port connected to my D-star radio.

Voila, ratflector is now RF enabled through my D-star radio, and out through our local ARES D-star repeater.

Keith

kc2oon?

Re: Neep help setting up a ratflector...please!!!

[email protected]

#619

Thank you Keith. I did get it all straightened out. I had some entries on the name server to the DDNS service set up wrong. After I finally found my mistake, it all worked flawlessly.

The next challenge is going to be to figure out how to gate it to the local D-Star repeater. First try didn't work but I'm still working on it.

I don't want to gate it all the time but on occasions during AERES events or emergencies. This ratflector was set up for ARES use with our local emergency management folks. Most of the people using it are part of the emergency backup communications team at our EOC/ARES.

Thank you for your reply and help !

73

Doug

WB4CDH

Re: Accessing Ratflector over RF

[email protected]

#618

Hi Ed,

I have gotten everything squared away and the ratflector up and running. I don't want to add it to the public list however at this time. This ratflector is going to be dedicated to the Santa Rosa County ARES group for emergency?communications functions with our EOC for now. If things change, I'll let you know and request it be added.

Thank You.

Doug

WB4CDH