[FADCA] Network Update since Melbourne Hamfest

[bud thompson]

Deltona
Wednesday Sept 17 0400E

To FADCA and a few other good friends:

Get out your map of Central Florida-

We are looking forward to the Melbourne FPAC switch being moved to the
premier site in Melbourne, nominally 200+ ft amsl.  A proposal to do that
will be made by Eric of KPTowers at the next BOD meeting of PCARS, the
sponsoring club. (Eric previously checked out the site and gave it the
OKAY.)  Andy Leeds, president of PCARS gave me two 30w UHF Mitreks to set up
for the backbone ports to Vero and Orlando.  Russ is checking out the data
base for an Orlando to Melbourne UHF backbone.  That will be 9.6kb the first
time it is installed.  That will make 9.6kb backbones from Melbourne through
Orlando, Deland, to Daytona Beach.

A week ago I made a site visit as a guest of Orange County to consider one
of its 800 MHz sites for the Orlando FPAC switch. The site is 42 miles from
Deland, 37 miles from Melbourne, and within a few degrees of being in a
straight line between the two.  It is 46 miles from Clermont.  With antennas
at 250 ft amsl, free hard line, and a free initial tower climb/antenna
installation, this site will be hard to pass up. I needed a sweater while
inside the  50 ft x 30 ft hut (it was 90 degrees outside), and a
demonstration of loss of mains revealed a seven second delay from commercial
mains to UPS to autostart generator.  Not a single cycle of AC power was
lost.  For the future, an internet connection is also available there.  This
past Monday I provided the Orange County Radio Systems Engineer (a ham!)
technical specifications of the RF portion of the switch.  Tuesday he
requested the antenna types and elevations, coax types and runs, etc., for
the Deland, Orlando, Melbourne and possible Clermont switches so he could
run his coverage program.  I sent him that information last night. Once we
formulate a deal, we'll need to get the switch sponsor and the County
together with a MOU.

Dan KA0OXH has placed a vhf antenna at more than 500 ft amsl on a proposed
FPAC site  in Clermont in Lake County. He will put a digi there on 145.07
(Orlando LAN) so we can start some coverage testing.  With the new Melbourne
and Orlando sites, and an FPAC at Clermont,  E. Central Florida will be
blanketed with LANs, and connectivity from Jacksonville to as far south as
we have working switches will be secured. A club/sponsor for the Clermont
switch will be needed.

Rick, KN6KB and Vic W5SMM (both in the Melbourne area) are developing the
next generation ham-radio-to-e-mail client called Paclink. N3PPC and I,
among others, have been beta testing Paclink for about a month.  Rick and
Vic are in New England this week to present a paper and demo at the
ARRL/TAPR Digital Communications Conference.  With MS Net Framework 1.1, AGW
Packet Engine, and Paclink on a computer, the operator only uses Outlook
Express, Outlook, Netscape, or Eudora (all e-mail clients)  as the "terminal
program" - All messaging is done as e-mail through your favorite e-mail
client program. After configuration all else is transparent.  Paclink will
eventually work with MS operating systems Win98 and later.

KN6KB's Telpac article, "TELPAC - Winlink 2000's New Telnet Bridge"  is
scheduled to be in the October 2003 QST.  I received an advance copy to
review, but it does not show the final page numbers.

N3PPC and I have the following Dog and Pony shows scheduled:

Sept 22 - Tampa Amateur Radio Club
Oct 18 - Volusia County ARES/RACES (rescheduled from this month)
Oct 28 - Titusville Amateur Radio Club.
TBD - A one day seminar on E-Mail Messaging in support of EMCOMMs at the
Seminole County EOC is in the planning stages.

A staff member of the Orange County ARES/RACES group has recommended that we
take the Dog and Pony show to that group in the near future, most likely
before the end of the year.

When Free, W1NPR returns to the state, he will smooth up my three MS Power
Point presentations for running on-line and/or downloading on the FADCA web
site.   These and four other documents will be there under the category
"EMCOMMS".  Once Free has the on-line stuff working, I'll request the FADCA
BOD review/approve the material before going public with it.  There will
also be a REFERENCES section for FADCA and other Internet topical
references.

Whew!

Next note will include a list of what needs to be done!

73,
bud Thompson N0IA
386 574 4124