| President: | Jack Reed | WA4FXX |
| Vice President: | Dennis Bodson | W4PWF |
| Secretary: | Mike Callaham | NW3V |
| Treasurer: | Mike Ingles | KG4RKL |
| Activities Chairman: | Alan Bosch | KO4ALA |
| Editor: | Mike Callaham | NW3V |
| June 2005 rev. 1 | ||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
| Meetings: | Usually Third Tuesday of each month, 7:30 P.M., Red Cross, 4333 Arlington Blvd. (US 50), Arlington,VA. Nonmembers are invited to attend. |
| Net: | Tuesday (except meeting nights) at 7:30 P.M., 144.87/145.47 MHz FM |
| WWW: | http://www.w4wvp.org/ |
| Roster: | http://www.w4wvp.org/roster.censored.txt |
| Affiliate: | ARRL, FAR |
| Information: | Jack Reed, WA4FXX, wa4fxx@amsat.org (e-mail), (703) 685-7933 (phone). |
|
|
At the June 21 meeting of the Arlington Amateur Radio Club, business items to be discussed include options for rehosting the W4WVP web site and related matters, such as domain registration, email reflectors, and secure login for roster access. Among other things, we hope to arrange for more storage space and avoid bandwidth throttling. We'll also continue planning for Field Day.
The program will include a demo of FD logging software by Mike, NW3V, and Dan, N8YSZ. For at least a decade W4WVP has used DOS shareware by WR9R for logging at busy (read: HF) FD positions. Dan would like to see us migrate to a networked logging architecture. Dan and Mike have been discussing and testing next-generation FD logging software and will demonstrate some. Of particular interest are xLog and tlf. Mike will bring a few copies of two bootable CDs (AFU-Knoppix 3.7 and Harv's Hamshack Hack v.06) that provide one or both programs and a bootable pair of Debian-Ham 0.5 floppies that offer tlf. Bring your PC to the meeting if you'd like to try any of these. For details, see the software review below.
Activities Chair Alan, KO4ALA, may screen the rest of the ARRL video, Everything You Wanted to Know About Antennas, But Were Afraid to Ask.
--Mike, NW3V, AARC Secretary
President Jack/WA4FXX called the meeting to order at 1932L. Attending, besides Jack, were Adam/KG4VNC, Dan/N8YSZ, Jim Hastings/K9AUC, Ron/AI4GO, Mike/KA8OPJ, Alan/KO4ALA, Dennis/W4PWF, George/KR4MU, Chuck/KI4DHW, Keith/KG4UIR, Bob Bowis/WB4KLJ (visitor), Mike/NW3V, and Paul Hoffmann/VK5PH (visitor).
Dennis/W4PWF moved to accept the minutes of the April meeting with minor corrections. Jack/WA4FXX seconded.
Treasurer's Report: Mike/KG4RKL The current balance of the club account was given. It was reported that there were two checks that had yet to be deposited. Field day shirts and pins are in- two of each are remaining.
W4PWF reported that they are getting ready for Dayton, and everything is quiet other than that. FXX gave his best wishes & jealousy for PWF's trip to Dayton.
ALA didn't attend FAR. FXX reported that QST reports that FAR awarded scholarships. 3V reports that summer '05 Autocall is out, W4WVP update is not included. 3V had problems submitting via email, ALA suggested another email address to try to use for submissions. FXX says that ALA has action for next Autocall submission to figure out the right way to do this.3V was pleasantly surprised to see ALA's article.
ALA: reported on BIG- spoof in DX Listening Digest of Broadband In Gas Lines.
FXX, ALA, DFW gave presentation at CERT course. Hoping to be included in CERT training in general.
ALA & UIR reported that the new GMRS antenna at the chapter for Red Cross GMRS net initiative w/ Arlington Hospital- to put GMRS repeater at hospital.
Public Service Events: calendar at Fairfax web site www.ncacdc.com
FXX: Field Day: have to ask permission if we want to run class F. FXX read proposed request for permission, MU took the request to submit. FXX will write invitations to others to participate in case we send invitations to newly licensed hams.
UIR reported that there are 130 new or modified registered hams in Arlington. FXX: we would like to keep AARC in people's minds. YSZ: will put announcement in Sun Gazette. Station will be open 2-6pm Saturday, 10-2 Sunday. 3V reported that setup will start at 10am Saturday. RKL asked if he should notify Boy Scouts as well. MU noted that previously breakfast was cooked to order on Sunday Morning. PWF moved to authorize $75 for field day refreshments. AUC seconded. Motion passed. MU asked that RKL write a check since he would miss the June meeting. MU noted that he spent $2.99 on batteries for the EST clock in the station. PWF moved to reimburse MU. FXX seconded. Motion passed. FXX: 3V will be station manager for field day. PWF: will write control operator permission for FD. Ian/KI4DTP and PWF will be cleaning up the station tomorrow. 3V: FD rules, OPJ brought up that they're different than previously, they wanted to disfavor unused transmitters.
3V: VNC noted siteflip and power hosting. YSZ noted brauhausdc.com, dreamhost.com, obscure.org. FXX: put together a proposal in English for this. 3V: VNC volunteered to be webmaster. 3V: Dstar link in beacon- 3 articles in QST about it. Icom 82 (?) is Dstar ready.
FXX: welcome VK5PH, tell us about radio in Australia. VK5PH: from Adelaide south Australia, on coast. Member in Adelaide Hills Radio Society (was secretary previously). Average age of club is 72 years, struggling to get youngsters joining. Participates in Scout Radio Activity Group- they have a caravan with radios and 100' pump-up mast. Also member in WICEN- Wireless Institute Civil Engineering Network. VK5PH told some interesting stories about radio in Australia.
Jack/WA4FXX solicited and obtained a motion to adjourn, which was seconded and passed without objection. The meeting was adjourned.
The Minutes above were recorded by Adam, KG4VNC, and formatted by me. My thanks to Adam. --Mike, NW3V
Respectfully submitted,
--Mike, NW3V
AARC Secretary
P.S.: Revised after 2005-06-21 meeting in accordance with vote to accept Minutes subject to amendment.
For about a decade W4WVP has used DOS "freeware" (as in "free beer") by WR9R for logging at busy FD positions. The WR9R Field Day Logger was developed specifically for Field Day logging. It offered automatic partial and dupe checking and CW background keying, a feature I used and liked very much. (I even worked WR9R using it on a few Field Days.) It could run on the most primitive DOS box, requiring only 384K RAM. It has even been known to run on PCs with Linux or Win NT/2K/XP installed, by booting with a DOS floppy. It could also be run in a (16-bit) DOS window on older, non-Professional versions of MS Windows.
The AARC submitted the requested contribution to WR9R in 1998 and received the then-latest version, 4.10, which we have used since. The latest version, 5.02, can still be downloaded from WR9R's web site. It was released May 9, 2000. Since then, some Field Day rules have passed it by. For example, it doesn't provide for DIGITAL mode nor class F, although we have managed to work around that. Nevertheless, it is becoming increasingly technologically obsolescent, partly because ops would like to run it on PCs with no floppy drive (which could be worked around), or no DOS (which could be worked around if there were a floppy drive to boot DOS from). It would also be nice to run a logging program on a multitasking platform also running other ham applications (e.g. PSK31) and ideally have the other ham applications log to the logging application automatically, and perhaps even over a network.
Dan, N8YSZ, would like to see us migrate to a networked logging architecture. Dan expects to be able to borrow several relatively modern laptops and make them available for FD logging (and, optionally, other FD applications). In addition, many AARC members may want to bring their own laptops or desktops to FD. One way to get them to play from the same sheet of music is to boot them from a "live" Linux CD loaded with ham radio applications for logging and other purposes, such as PSK31, RTTY, and SSTV. Candidate CDs include AFU-Knoppix 3.7 and Harv's Hamshack Hack v.06, which contain a variety of logging programs. The logging programs that look most appropriate to me are xLog, which is on both CDs, and tlf, which is on AFU-Knoppix and also on Debian-Ham 0.5, a live distribution booted from floppy instead of CD. Ideally--next year?--we would produce our own CDs, with network info and logging info preconfigured. But this year, in the interest of time, we'll boot off-the-shelf media and do the relatively simple configuration manually.
Most likely we'll want to boot from Harv's Hamshack Hack and run xLog, because Harv's Hamshack Hack can be booted hands-off (no parameters need be entered at boot time), and the xLog interface is very intuitive, even for non-Linux-users, I think. One downside is that xLog does not explicitly support FD rules or exchanges, but that can be worked around. tlf is worth a look, too. It _does_ explicitly support FD rules and exchanges, and it has some interesting features for networking and CW. But it's a terminal program (although it can be run on a terminal emulator window in X windows), and the command syntax will take some getting used to.
Now that I've given away the summary, if you're still with me, I'd like to review a few specific options in greater detail, starting with the one that's most like booting DOS from floppy and running WR9R, to the one that I think we're most likely to like and use.
There are two floppies in the Debian-Ham live distribution: a boot floppy and a root floppy. To boot, insert the boot floppy into the floppy drive (the A: drive, if there are two) and power up the PC. As it boots up, press whatever key is needed to run the BIOS setup program, to insure that the PC will boot from the A: drive. As booting proceeds, the bootstrap loader (LILO: LInux LOader) will prompt for boot options, if any, followed by the RETURN (aka Enter) key. If no key is pressed within about 5 seconds, booting will continue automatically using default options, which works on the Compaq Presario 7970 on which I tested Debian-Ham. Eventually there will be a prompt to insert the root floppy and press ENTER. Do so. Finally there will be a login prompt:
tlf login:
Type "root" (without the quotes) and press the Enter key. Your're in.
The next thing you may want to know is how to shut down or reboot: type "halt" or "reboot" at the prompt, then press the Enter key.
The root floppy is so called because it contains the root of the filesystem as well as several files and programs on the filesystem. It also contains 391K of free space that can be used by the user, e.g., to store logs or configuration files. I could edit the default configuration info for tlf (e.g. changing N0CALL to W4WVP and specifying arrl_fd contest rules instead of cqww contest rules) and distribute the edited root floppies instead of the as-downloaded root floppies for use at FD. In fact, we could share one boot floppy but use a separate root floppy copy for each PC.
Sooner or later, you'll probably want to edit a configuration file or a log file. You'll definitely need to edit the tlf configuration file, logcfg.dat, if it hasn't been done for you. The only editor program available is one called e3. It can be started by typing either e3 or edit at the command prompt. Before you do, you should learn how to use and how to quit e3. There's no manual on the root floppy, so you need to learn e3 commands beforehand, have printed documentation available, or have an Internet connected computer nearby so that you can download the source code archive, which has the manual page and other instructions. Don't believe everything you read in the manual page: for example, the version on Debian-Hams 0.5 cannot be invoked as e3vi in order to enable vi-like editing commands. (One can change to vi editing mode after e3 has started in the default WordStar mode.)
So much for e3. What about tlf? I think the web documentation for tlf version 0.9.9 (the version on Debian-Hams 0.5 is 0.8.19) gives a good description of what tlf can do and how to do it, so I'll move on to AFU-Knoppix. I think the bottom line on tlf is that it has some very neat capabilities for Field Day logging, CW keying, networking, and access to DX PacketCluster nodes, and might be a preferred option for ops familiar with, or prepared to get familiar with, the Linux command-line interface, the e3 editor, and tlf itself.
If your PC supports booting from a CD, just slip the AFU-Knoppix CD into your CDROM drive and power up (or reboot).
As your PC boots up, press whatever key is needed to run the BIOS setup program, to insure that the PC will boot from the CDROM drive. As booting proceeds, the bootstrap loader will display a boot prompt:
boot:
Complete the line thus:
boot: knoppix lang<Shift-0>us<Ret>
The <Shift-0> key combination is needed to enter an equals sign, because the bootloader expects a German keyboard to be attached. The completed line will look like this:
boot: knoppix lang=us
The hard part is over; AFU-Knoppix will continue booting, logging you in a user "knoppix", and starting X windows. At this point, you can start xLog by clicking the xLog icon on the desktop. The first time you do so, you'll need to set some defaults, then quit xLog and restart. I'll demonstrate at the meeting.
Harv's Hamshack Hack boots hands-off on the two PCs I've tested it on; there's no need to tell it to use the English language and a US keyboard. Once it starts, you can click the xLog icon on the desktop and configure. Both Harv's Hamshack Hack and AFU-Knoppix are remastered versions of Knoppix, so they share many similarities. At a glance, it seems that Harv's Hamshack Hack has more ham apps than AFU-Knoppix does, but AFU-Knoppix has tlf, and Harv's Hamshack Hack doesn't. When I tried browsing the web with Konqueror, the default browser on both CDs, it appeared that Harv's Konqueror was misconfigured, but I fell back on Mozilla Firefox, which worked fine. In short, both Harv's Hamshack Hack and AFU-Knoppix are contenders for Field Day logging, but we'll probably prefer Harv's Hamshack Hack unless we want tlf.
-- Mike, NW3V
ARLX002: 2005 W1AW Field Day Bulletin Schedule
ARLB-014: US Senate version of Amateur Radio Spectrum Protection Act
ARLS-005: ISS crew could be on the air for Field Day!
This is just a sample. For other recent bulletins, check out http://www.arrl.org/w1aw/, or listen to W1AW.
http://siteflip.com (Nominated by Adam, KG4VNC)
http://pwrhosting.com (Nominated by Adam, KG4VNC)
http://www.dreamhost.com (Nominated by Dan, N8YSZ)
http://obscure.org (Nominated by Dan, N8YSZ)
http://brauhausdc.org/n8ysz/ (Nominated by Dan, N8YSZ)
xLog
tlf
Harv's Hamshack Hack
AFU-Knoppix
Debian-Ham
CERT
D-STAR System
Internet Radio Linking Project (IRLP)
http://live.irlp.net:8000/listen.pls (IRLP Crossroads Reflector)
The Arlington Amateur Radio Club
4333 Arlington Boulevard
Arlington, VA 22203
