[OZAPRS] OZAPRS Digest, Vol 94, Issue 2

Tue Aug 1 14:17:08 AEST 2017

Hi all,

I have tried to make contact via the Oz APRS web page without success. I just wanted to let you know that VK4MDX is no longer my callsign and I now live in Sydney.

My call is VK2KMI. The HF igate in Townsville (VK4MDX) is no longer.

Kimberly Olsen
Vintage tech geek and NQ girl,
keen blogger, writer, photographer,
training professional and diversity activist
@nqgirlinsydney @kimberlyactive

"My gender is an unquestionable truth."
There can't be a greater waste of a human life than dying without ever letting the people you love see who you really are". Cate McGregor.

________________________________
From: OZAPRS <ozaprs-bounces at aprs.net.au> on behalf of ozaprs-request at aprs.net.au <ozaprs-request at aprs.net.au>
Sent: Tuesday, 1 August 2017 1:14 PM
To: ozaprs at aprs.net.au
Subject: OZAPRS Digest, Vol 94, Issue 2

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Today's Topics:

   1. Re: ISS Packet system down.... (Liz)
   2. Re: ISS Packet system down.... (Andrew Rich)
   3. Re: ISS Packet system down.... (vk2tv)
   4. Re: ISS Packet system down.... (Andrew Rich)
   5. Re: ISS Packet system down.... (vk2tv)
   6. Re: ISS Packet system down.... (Andrew Rich)

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Message: 1
Date: Tue, 1 Aug 2017 12:17:45 +1000
From: Liz <liz at billiau.info>
To: ozaprs at aprs.net.au
Subject: Re: [OZAPRS] ISS Packet system down....
Message-ID: <20170801121745.24822e79 at mum-quad.billiau.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8

QTR Tue, 1 Aug 2017 09:45:27 +0930 Terry, VK5ATN QTC

> For me the challenge of working the ISS is in utilizing an orbital
> pass which offers the highest likelihood of hearing my signal and the
> digipeated signal (if it exists) being captured by the available
> Igates.  As far as I am aware, there are none operating in SA.
> Igates are available on the west cost of the continent, and in the
> east from VK3KAW - there may be others.   Playing around with Igate
> locations in Orbitron reveals that ideal passes for my SA station are
> much more limited than might be first thought, confirmed by quite a
> few years of casual, and at times intense experimenting.    I have
> speculated about setting up my own Igate, but lack of accurate and
> specific information, along with my only having Windose XP
> computer(s) free for the exercise has meant that it hasn't progressed
> beyond an initial more or less successful experiment some months
> back.
>
> I cannot conclude this without thanking any Igate operators most
> sincerely for making the facility available.  Without their
> generosity, the exercise would be futile.
>
> All this of course subject to peer review,  I'm just an
> experimenter ....

you say you just have windowsXP. For a very small price a RTL-SDR
receiver, a suitable antenna and a current microcomputer (eg RPi) would
build you a complete iGate which won't cost much to run, and need an
occasional restart.
Just another experiment....

I'm currently using a RTL-SDR and a Pine64 to watch the ADS-B traffic,
with a collinear antenna built from scrap coax. That's another fun
experiment.

-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
Liz
VK2XSE

------------------------------

Message: 2
Date: Tue, 1 Aug 2017 12:42:42 +1000
From: Andrew Rich <vk4tec at tech-software.net>
To: Australian APRS Users <ozaprs at aprs.net.au>
Subject: Re: [OZAPRS] ISS Packet system down....
Message-ID: <C724B30D-6884-46E0-87A9-A067F088259B at tech-software.net>
Content-Type: text/plain;       charset=us-ascii

Liz

What os are u running on your pine64 ?

Sent from my iPhone

> On 1 Aug 2017, at 12:17 pm, Liz <liz at billiau.info> wrote:
>
> QTR Tue, 1 Aug 2017 09:45:27 +0930 Terry, VK5ATN QTC
>
>> For me the challenge of working the ISS is in utilizing an orbital
>> pass which offers the highest likelihood of hearing my signal and the
>> digipeated signal (if it exists) being captured by the available
>> Igates.  As far as I am aware, there are none operating in SA.
>> Igates are available on the west cost of the continent, and in the
>> east from VK3KAW - there may be others.   Playing around with Igate
>> locations in Orbitron reveals that ideal passes for my SA station are
>> much more limited than might be first thought, confirmed by quite a
>> few years of casual, and at times intense experimenting.    I have
>> speculated about setting up my own Igate, but lack of accurate and
>> specific information, along with my only having Windose XP
>> computer(s) free for the exercise has meant that it hasn't progressed
>> beyond an initial more or less successful experiment some months
>> back.
>>
>> I cannot conclude this without thanking any Igate operators most
>> sincerely for making the facility available.  Without their
>> generosity, the exercise would be futile.
>>
>> All this of course subject to peer review,  I'm just an
>> experimenter ....
>
> you say you just have windowsXP. For a very small price a RTL-SDR
> receiver, a suitable antenna and a current microcomputer (eg RPi) would
> build you a complete iGate which won't cost much to run, and need an
> occasional restart.
> Just another experiment....
>
> I'm currently using a RTL-SDR and a Pine64 to watch the ADS-B traffic,
> with a collinear antenna built from scrap coax. That's another fun
> experiment.
>
>
>
> -+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
> Liz
> VK2XSE
> _______________________________________________
> OZAPRS mailing list
> OZAPRS at aprs.net.au
> http://lists.aprs.net.au/mailman/listinfo/ozaprs
OZAPRS -- Australian APRS Users<http://lists.aprs.net.au/mailman/listinfo/ozaprs>
lists.aprs.net.au
Mailing list for APRS users in Australia and New Zealand. To see the collection of prior postings to the list, visit the OZAPRS Archives.

------------------------------

Message: 3
Date: Tue, 1 Aug 2017 12:50:29 +1000
From: vk2tv <vk2tv at exemail.com.au>
To: ozaprs at aprs.net.au
Subject: Re: [OZAPRS] ISS Packet system down....
Message-ID: <952c33e7-4576-28ee-8677-884c90456f16 at exemail.com.au>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed

On 01/08/17 12:17, Liz wrote:
>
> you say you just have windowsXP. For a very small price a RTL-SDR
> receiver, a suitable antenna and a current microcomputer (eg RPi) would
> build you a complete iGate which won't cost much to run, and need an
> occasional restart.
> Just another experiment....
>
> I'm currently using a RTL-SDR and a Pine64 to watch the ADS-B traffic,
> with a collinear antenna built from scrap coax. That's another fun
> experiment.
>
>
>
> -+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
> Liz
> VK2XSE
> _______________________________________________
>

I agree, but why the occasional reboot?

My RPi with RTL dongle for ADS-B currently has an uptime of 125 days,
and has been sending data to PlaneFinder for 70 days. Give the RPi a
decent power supply and it will run for forever!

My previous (and soon to be again) APRS satgate used a Pi driving a
four-port FTDI USB/RS232 adaptor to drive an old TNC (Tiny 2) and the
old Icom IC-2 handheld for 145.825. That arrangement ran for months
without a reboot, and gave the old Icom a new purpose in life.

Ray vk2tv

------------------------------

Message: 4
Date: Tue, 1 Aug 2017 12:53:45 +1000
From: Andrew Rich <vk4tec at tech-software.net>
To: Australian APRS Users <ozaprs at aprs.net.au>
Subject: Re: [OZAPRS] ISS Packet system down....
Message-ID: <0EC3AA02-B0A1-4B62-9087-954D6F1ABA6D at tech-software.net>
Content-Type: text/plain;       charset=us-ascii

Have you seen that direwolf decodes way more packets than an average tnc

A

Sent from my iPhone

> On 1 Aug 2017, at 12:50 pm, vk2tv <vk2tv at exemail.com.au> wrote:
>
>
>> On 01/08/17 12:17, Liz wrote:
>>
>> you say you just have windowsXP. For a very small price a RTL-SDR
>> receiver, a suitable antenna and a current microcomputer (eg RPi) would
>> build you a complete iGate which won't cost much to run, and need an
>> occasional restart.
>> Just another experiment....
>>
>> I'm currently using a RTL-SDR and a Pine64 to watch the ADS-B traffic,
>> with a collinear antenna built from scrap coax. That's another fun
>> experiment.
>>
>>
>>
>> -+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
>> Liz
>> VK2XSE
>> _______________________________________________
>>
>
> I agree, but why the occasional reboot?
>
> My RPi with RTL dongle for ADS-B currently has an uptime of 125 days, and has been sending data to PlaneFinder for 70 days. Give the RPi a decent power supply and it will run for forever!
>
> My previous (and soon to be again) APRS satgate used a Pi driving a four-port FTDI USB/RS232 adaptor to drive an old TNC (Tiny 2) and the old Icom IC-2 handheld for 145.825. That arrangement ran for months without a reboot, and gave the old Icom a new purpose in life.
>
> Ray vk2tv
>
> _______________________________________________
> OZAPRS mailing list
> OZAPRS at aprs.net.au
> http://lists.aprs.net.au/mailman/listinfo/ozaprs
OZAPRS -- Australian APRS Users<http://lists.aprs.net.au/mailman/listinfo/ozaprs>
lists.aprs.net.au
Mailing list for APRS users in Australia and New Zealand. To see the collection of prior postings to the list, visit the OZAPRS Archives.

------------------------------

Message: 5
Date: Tue, 1 Aug 2017 13:11:03 +1000
From: vk2tv <vk2tv at exemail.com.au>
To: ozaprs at aprs.net.au
Subject: Re: [OZAPRS] ISS Packet system down....
Message-ID: <481ca540-f0b8-39d9-57d3-a264e51c2cb6 at exemail.com.au>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"; Format="flowed"

Yes, and I've dabbled with it, but I had the old hardware gathering
dust. My USB sound device doesn't play well with the Pi and it's not
worth (for me) buying more USB sound devices.

I've not compared myself but I've read that the Exar 2211 FSK decoder in
the original TNC2 decodes better than the TCM3105 chip in the Tiny 2. I
ran a number of Baycom (serial port) style modems using the TCM3105 for
a while and they were a bit ordinary. However, my Baycom USCC>4 card
also uses the TCM3105 ( in a very similar circuit to the humble Baycom
modem) and it walked all over the serial port Baycom style modems. I
think the vastly improved timing of the USCC card was responsible for
the outstanding performance improvement. When my shack is set up again
I'm going to compare the USCC card performance with Direwolf. It's one
comparison the author of Direwolf hasn't published. Watch this space.

Ray vk2tv

On 01/08/17 12:53, Andrew Rich wrote:
> Have you seen that direwolf decodes way more packets than an average tnc
>
> A
>
> Sent from my iPhone
>
>> On 1 Aug 2017, at 12:50 pm, vk2tv <vk2tv at exemail.com.au> wrote:
>>
>>
>>> On 01/08/17 12:17, Liz wrote:
>>>
>>> you say you just have windowsXP. For a very small price a RTL-SDR
>>> receiver, a suitable antenna and a current microcomputer (eg RPi) would
>>> build you a complete iGate which won't cost much to run, and need an
>>> occasional restart.
>>> Just another experiment....
>>>
>>> I'm currently using a RTL-SDR and a Pine64 to watch the ADS-B traffic,
>>> with a collinear antenna built from scrap coax. That's another fun
>>> experiment.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> -+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
>>> Liz
>>> VK2XSE
>>> _______________________________________________
>>>
>> I agree, but why the occasional reboot?
>>
>> My RPi with RTL dongle for ADS-B currently has an uptime of 125 days, and has been sending data to PlaneFinder for 70 days. Give the RPi a decent power supply and it will run for forever!
>>
>> My previous (and soon to be again) APRS satgate used a Pi driving a four-port FTDI USB/RS232 adaptor to drive an old TNC (Tiny 2) and the old Icom IC-2 handheld for 145.825. That arrangement ran for months without a reboot, and gave the old Icom a new purpose in life.
>>
>> Ray vk2tv
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> OZAPRS mailing list
>> OZAPRS at aprs.net.au
>> http://lists.aprs.net.au/mailman/listinfo/ozaprs
OZAPRS -- Australian APRS Users<http://lists.aprs.net.au/mailman/listinfo/ozaprs>
lists.aprs.net.au
Mailing list for APRS users in Australia and New Zealand. To see the collection of prior postings to the list, visit the OZAPRS Archives.

> _______________________________________________
> OZAPRS mailing list
> OZAPRS at aprs.net.au
> http://lists.aprs.net.au/mailman/listinfo/ozaprs
OZAPRS -- Australian APRS Users<http://lists.aprs.net.au/mailman/listinfo/ozaprs>
lists.aprs.net.au
Mailing list for APRS users in Australia and New Zealand. To see the collection of prior postings to the list, visit the OZAPRS Archives.

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Message: 6
Date: Tue, 1 Aug 2017 13:15:43 +1000
From: Andrew Rich <vk4tec at tech-software.net>
To: Australian APRS Users <ozaprs at aprs.net.au>
Subject: Re: [OZAPRS] ISS Packet system down....
Message-ID: <522710FD-BBBC-49ED-A6B1-5F49AC5EA8F4 at tech-software.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"

You can marry up gpredict and gqrx and an rtl sdr dongle to get Doppler shifted Linux based ground station

A

Sent from my iPhone

> On 1 Aug 2017, at 1:11 pm, vk2tv <vk2tv at exemail.com.au> wrote:
>
> Yes, and I've dabbled with it, but I had the old hardware gathering dust. My USB sound device doesn't play well with the Pi and it's not worth (for me)         buying more USB sound devices.
>
> I've not compared myself but I've read that the Exar 2211 FSK decoder in the original TNC2 decodes better than the TCM3105 chip in the Tiny 2. I ran a number of Baycom (serial port) style modems using the TCM3105 for a while and they were a bit ordinary. However, my Baycom USCC>4 card also uses the TCM3105 ( in a very similar circuit to the humble Baycom modem) and it walked all over the serial port Baycom style modems. I think the vastly improved timing of the USCC card was responsible for the outstanding performance improvement. When my shack is set up again I'm going to compare the USCC card performance with Direwolf. It's one comparison the author of Direwolf hasn't published. Watch this space.
>
> Ray vk2tv
>
>
>
>
>> On 01/08/17 12:53, Andrew Rich wrote:
>> Have you seen that direwolf decodes way more packets than an average tnc
>>
>> A
>>
>> Sent from my iPhone
>>
>>>> On 1 Aug 2017, at 12:50 pm, vk2tv <vk2tv at exemail.com.au> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On 01/08/17 12:17, Liz wrote:
>>>>
>>>> you say you just have windowsXP. For a very small price a RTL-SDR
>>>> receiver, a suitable antenna and a current microcomputer (eg RPi) would
>>>> build you a complete iGate which won't cost much to run, and need an
>>>> occasional restart.
>>>> Just another experiment....
>>>>
>>>> I'm currently using a RTL-SDR and a Pine64 to watch the ADS-B traffic,
>>>> with a collinear antenna built from scrap coax. That's another fun
>>>> experiment.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> -+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
>>>> Liz
>>>> VK2XSE
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>
>>> I agree, but why the occasional reboot?
>>>
>>> My RPi with RTL dongle for ADS-B currently has an uptime of 125 days, and has been sending data to PlaneFinder for 70 days. Give the RPi a decent power supply and it will run for forever!
>>>
>>> My previous (and soon to be again) APRS satgate used a Pi driving a four-port FTDI USB/RS232 adaptor to drive an old TNC (Tiny 2) and the old Icom IC-2 handheld for 145.825. That arrangement ran for months without a reboot, and gave the old Icom a new purpose in life.
>>>
>>> Ray vk2tv
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> OZAPRS mailing list
>>> OZAPRS at aprs.net.au
>>> http://lists.aprs.net.au/mailman/listinfo/ozaprs
>> _______________________________________________
>> OZAPRS mailing list
>> OZAPRS at aprs.net.au
>> http://lists.aprs.net.au/mailman/listinfo/ozaprs
>
> _______________________________________________
> OZAPRS mailing list
> OZAPRS at aprs.net.au
> http://lists.aprs.net.au/mailman/listinfo/ozaprs
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------------------------------

End of OZAPRS Digest, Vol 94, Issue 2
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