[FADCA] Presentations at Deltona and Moosehaven - Digital Messaging in Support of EMCOMMs

[bud thompson]

Deltona, FL
Wednesday March 24 0730E

We had a good presentation and demo at the Indian Mound Amateur Radio Club
on Monday.  With only an hour of time we kept the presentation very informal
and did both vhf and HF demonstrations - using 20M on HF at 1030E.  Twenty
people were in attendance.

We had a very successfully presentation and demonstration to 40 ARES people
from two (maybe three ) counties at Moosehaven near Jacksonville last night.
No one slept or nodded off and there was a lot of audience interaction and
apparent interest in Digital Messaging in Support of EMCOMMs.

Early in the afternoon four of us erected an all-band HF antenna and a 2M
antenna - just like Field Day - except no rain!

While testing the antennas, the 2M packet radio in the Yellow Thingy quit
all together! Arrrrghh... Substituting another radio into the Yellow Thingy
meant not being able to do across-the-room Paclink-to-Paclink
demonstrations.  Taking the time to trouble shoot the problem and make the
exchange resulted in my not finalizing the prepared e-mail messages we'd
planned on actually sending out!  The result was a very short text for the
HF demo and even a shorter text message for the vhf demo!  While testing in
the afternoon we had great 40,30, and 20 meter coverage and could have done
much more for the demo had there been time.  Using PacTOR 3 a short text
message doesn't take enough time to be noticed! Har.  We linked with K4CJX
in Nashville on 40M for the HF tests (running 40w) and used one of the
several TelPac nodes in the area on VHF.

Russ, N4KOX had his laptop there and was able to reach a wireless access
point to pick up his commercial E-Mail, so we could show that he received
his CC: of the HF message (even before he could interrupt my lecturing to
let us know).  We then linked to the TelPac node for the vhf test which was
also short!  During the Q&A someone asked if I could send a short message to
his EOC with a couple of e-mail addresses on it.  I set that up and when
again connected to the TelPac node to send it, there were three messages for
me!  Russ had quietly replied with two messages back through his Wireless
connection and we also had an auto reply to the HF message sent ten minutes
before from someone on the e-mail list.

All-in-all we had one of the best receptions we've had in the past two years
of giving these demonstrations.

73,
bud Thompson N0IA