Simulated Emergency Test - 1st week of Oct. Anyone can participate.

Started by WA4STO, September 08, 2013, 11:37:40 AM

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WA4STO

Oh goodie; another traffic handling topic.  yay!  :)

You may have seen a handling instruction or two in your travels.  Here's a typical message that contains one:

27 R HXC N1IQI 25 PEMBROKE MA  SEP 5
JOHN E HOAGLAND N0YUE
605 HOGAN DRIVE
PAPILLION NE 68046
402 614 6482
BT
A FRIENDLY REMINDER YOUR AMATEUR
RADIO LICENSE EXPIRES OCT 4 2013
HOPE YOU WILL RENEW
IF NOT DONE SO ALREADY
WE NEED YOUR PARTICIPATION 73
BT
LOREN N1IQI

There it is, hidden squarely between the message precedence and the station of origin.

To understand what the originator is requesting, go here:  http://nts.ema.arrl.org/node/32

As you can see, N1IQI has asked the delivering station to report the date and time of delivery back to him (N1IQI).  If you ever have
any trouble figuring out how to get a message back to the originator, just send your message to me and I'll take responsibility for it.

Not all handling instructions require action on your part.  Sometimes the originator wants you to know that delivery is not required if there's any charges involved with doing so.  (But even so, if you accept responsibility for it, you've only got those three choices available to you...)

350 SET messages created so far.  So little time; so many messages!

73

Luck, WA4STO

RichardSinFWTX

OK, yes, I have seen those on some messages.  I just haven't dealt with them.

Jedi Master Luck, I do have a question about to flow of traffic.  Once I am able to take the pebble from your hand and graduate to Traffic Handler Extraordinaire how does the traffic come to me?  Assuming I'm on something like WinLink or NTS, how does someone sending a message know that I'm the right person to get a message to it's intended target? 

WA4STO

KF5RHI de WA4STO

Valid question.  Hard to answer.

I know this first answer is not what you had in mind, but it's important to mention.  The National Traffic System (made up of individuals and nets, from local to Area) will route your traffic according to the address.  In other words, the individuals will see that you have a message for Nebraska which will then get routed (manually) to the Section, Region, and Area nets and back down again until it reaches me in Nebraska.

The second way is WL2K.  WL2K does not know how to route NTS traffic, per se; all it knows is how to route the whole message (which might contain a hundred messages, or no formal written traffic at all) either to a registered callsign (like KF5RHI or EI7IG), OR to a valid email address.  However, it doesn't know (nor can it see) any imbedded formal message traffic. 

The third method is by NTS(D) Pactor.  In this case, the routing is quite robust and is set up to route one QTC per pactor message, based on the zip code and NTS state or section.  Thus, if you enter "02056@NTSMA" the QTC will be autoforwarded to Massachusetts.  If I enter one to "DL0NTS@NTSEU", it will get routed to Germany.

Having said all that, I suspect you had some other (related) question in mind.  What didn't I answer?

73

Luck, WA4STO

RichardSinFWTX

I think I've got it for now...or at least I don't know what I don't know.  :)

I reached out to my STM a couple days ago; but haven't heard anything back.

WA4STO

KF5RHI sez:

>>>>I was checking out HamSpots.net the other day and saw your callsign!

Hey you.  Long time.  Hope all's well.

Yes, hamspots is pretty good at spotting anybody who's on the digital modes.

Well, except for the ones I'm most active on.

As you may recall, I'm almost never on SSB.  That's primarily because of my greatly diminished hearing in recent years, but perhaps more importantly:

SSB doesn't yet (to the best of my knowledge) allow error corrected international forwarding.  So not only can I not hear it, I can't be assured that my messages will get to their intended destinations, nor can I assume that they'll get there error free by utilizing voice modes.

Same thing with CW.  Granted, this month I have (so far) sent and received the vast majority of my messages by way of CW.  But this month is a strange case. 

Most often, I use NTS(D) Pactor and/or WL2K.

And I can't help but notice that the overseas guys are digging in REAL well with the purchase (no small thing...) and use of the newer P3 and even P4 modems which offer a huge increase in thruput.  And those very same 'overseas' guys are still hoping for us back here to generate more and more messages for them.  From my point of view, my cadre of SHTF-minded folks has greatly increased in size, now just over 300 individuals around the globe, who I can count on to answer my SHTF resource-specific questions.  Cool stuff.

Anyway, to your point.  I was very likely assisting somebody or another on the K3UK site who needed Nebraska on SSB.  But that is seriously rare for me.

Won't be long till we'll be planning for the October Simulated Emergency Test again.  I'm hoping to triple my thruput during the SET this year and can only wish I could somehow afford a much faster pactor modem by then.  Sigh!

73

Luck, WA4STO

RichardSinFWTX

I'm on Spring Break all week so I've been trying to get my digital station in a box built.  Sadly, I'm not as far along as I would have liked.  Yesterday was a loss since it was in the 40s just about all day and I'm not willing to sit out in the garage and freeze my stones off. 

I didn't even notice what mode you were using.  I just saw your callsign and thought I'd give ya a shout!  :)  As soon as I get my digital box put together I'll see if I can give ya a holler out there.

Those pactor modems are really expensive.  I don't see one of those in my future any time soon.

Give me a shout when it gets time for that SET.  I'll be glad to help!

Take care in the mean time!

73, amigo!

kat

Been fighting with my mfj1278....once I get it connected up to the raspberry pi I can get it on the air


Sent from my HTC Aria


NCGunDude

Been lurking for a while. Technician licensee, sitting for General next month. Located in Central NC.

I'm getting the specs together for a portable digital station. Currently I'm looking at using something like Signalink USB and a laptop running Linux.

Also need advice on an HF rig. Hope to get online in the near future. 73's.

madball13


Quote from: NCGunDude on March 16, 2014, 10:49:46 PM
Been lurking for a while. Technician licensee, sitting for General next month. Located in Central NC.

I'm getting the specs together for a portable digital station. Currently I'm looking at using something like Signalink USB and a laptop running Linux.

Also need advice on an HF rig. Hope to get online in the near future. 73's.

do you have any interest in learning morse code?

KK0G


Quote from: NCGunDude on March 16, 2014, 10:49:46 PM
Been lurking for a while. Technician licensee, sitting for General next month. Located in Central NC.

I'm getting the specs together for a portable digital station. Currently I'm looking at using something like Signalink USB and a laptop running Linux.

Also need advice on an HF rig. Hope to get online in the near future. 73's.
Welcome to the forum, glad to have you aboard. Good luck on your General.
"Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety" - Benjamin Franklin

KK0G

gil

QuoteAlso need advice on an HF rig. Hope to get online in the near future. 73's.

Hello and welcome aboard.

It depends if you want to go portable or not.. Power is not an issue on HF. It's nice to have at least 10W on SSB though. What you'll need t decide is if you want to take your rig with you on trips. For that, Elecraft KX3 or Yaesu FT-817nd. If I was getting a home station I'd probably go for an Icom Ic-7200. They all cost quite a bit of money, but worth waiting for...

Gil.

NCGunDude

Thanks for the welcome. CW is on my list. HF rig will be portable for field work.

Elecraft has come up. The plans are to build a go box using a gator case, rig runner, and powerwerx switching power supply.

I'm looking for a used Chromebook to install Linux and get a Signalink USB dongle. Everything should fit well and run portable using any external power source.

Got on 40m at a QSO party last month and made contacts statewide and neighboring states. Still a lot to learn and do. Cheers and 73's.

WA4STO

Quote from: WA4STO on September 08, 2013, 12:22:05 PM
I am posting this primarily for KF5RHI but it may be of interest to the others of you who participated in the last Simulated Emergency Test.
--------
On 4/10/2014 2:49 PM, Peter Dintelmann, DL4FN wrote:
> ...
(Regarding last October's Simulated Emergency Test)
>
> It was the joint wish of users on both sides of
> the great pond to have more detailed information
> on the rcvd/sent status of their traffic.
>
> ...
>
> As I do not want to put too much additional traffic
> on the nets my idea is to send these service
> messages only to stations which are on a certain
> whitelist.
>
>
> @Luck: could you please organize some tests for me? We
> will need a few volunteering whitelist stations and a
> couple of HXC/HXD messages. Traffic to be forwarded to
> the UK is of great help also to test the 2.x rules.
>
>
Peter - as I was reading your message, it struck me that we (the collective 'we') may have
asked you to put forth way too much effort.  For example if I were to send another 800
messages during the next SET, it would be unthinkable to ask you to service them.

Then I spotted the fact that you are writing code to do the heavy lifting.  So much for my
worries, hi.

I'd be more than happy to organize some tests for you.  I would like to ask several of the
high volume traffic handlers around the U.S. to send some as practice test messages, but I'm assuming
that the "whitelist" portion of this plan would mean stations that are known to be NTSD pactor -
capable, rather than those, plus the CW, plus the SSB traffic handlers.  In due time, we should strive
to include them, but for the testing of your code, probably best to keep things relatively sane.

So, if this sounds like what you had in mind, how about if I come up with five stations who agree
to be whitelisted and also agree to send you a few messages each, but only after you've assured us
that you're ready to go.  Would that work?

Also, I'm thinking that messages addressed to Trevor would be of value for (at least) two reasons:

1. It would help to test your 2.x rules as mentioned above and

2.  I think it's accurate to say that Trevor is up and running on Pactor now.  Does that mean that it would
make sense to arrange for traffic to him via DF0NTS for this practice purpose?

I recall that G4HPE was accepting messages for several additional stations and that I was sending Steve
the messages by way of WL2K.  I would guess that there wouldn't be a point in sending Steve test messages
for this specific purpose, unless you and he agree that there would be value in doing so.

Am I on the right track with all this?

73

Luck, WA4STO
ARRL A1-operator,
BPL Medallion holder, circa 1977
VUCC Satellite (all CW)
NTS(D) Digital Relay Station, Central Area
NTS(D) Target Station, CAN, TEN & NE
TCC Station “Echo”, “Fox” & “Charlie”
Associate Member, NTS Central Area Staff

RichardSinFWTX

Assuming that things in eastern Europe haven't gone further to sh** by then I can probably come up with something along the lines of the Russians moving against the rest of Ukraine or maybe the other Baltic states.


WA4STO

Uh.... these are Brits we're talking about here, right?  You know, the ones with the stiff upper lip and zero sense of humor?

Maybe something more along the lines of "testing testing 1 2 3"   :o

but in any event, nothing yet.  Let's let DL4FN write up those 500 lines of code for DF0NTS.  Will letcha know when he's ready to accept a few test messages.

73

LH