[FADCA] WL2K Demo - Lake County, Florida EOC

[bud thompson]

Deltona, FL
Friday Nov 19

Last night Charlie, N3PPC and I had a most successful presentation/demo with
a Paclink AGW Ham Radio E-mail Server on a LAN with two client computers.
We brought the two client laptops (one XP one ME) w/wireless cards, a
wired/wireless router,  and had our XP server on CAT5 to the router.  Ed
W5TWR was able to coax his XP laptop onto our LAN, but it was too late to
help him set up an E-mail account.  Russ, N4KOX had his laptop with
commercial wireless access, and a another attendee had a Palm Pilot (or
something similar) with wireless and could access his commercial e-mail
account.

At last count there were 28 in attendance, but several walked in during the
presentation.  Many of the attendees were EM types from Lake and adjoining
Sumter county.  Over half of those in attendance were hams.

For our link to TelPac nodes we used 1200 baud 2Mt.  We had a good outside
antenna on the building.  We could access two different TelPac nodes in the
area on 145.01.  On 144.91 we could access the Florida Layered Packet
Network switch at DeLand (35-40 miles) which gave us access to four TelPac
nodes and a PMBO packet port.  Hidden in the details is the fact that the
backbone from the DeLand switch to the Orlando switch is 9.6kb to reach all
but one of those.

In all, this covered spreading RF over six counties in Central Florida.

Prior to the meeting I had put a canned information e-mail message in each
of the three computers.  I included all the e-mail addresses of those who
had been invited to the meeting along with some WL2K cohorts who would reply
sometime during the evening.  Those in attendance would find their messages
when they return home or at work this morning.

After a brief introduction during which I explained the function of each of
the three computers on our LAN, the router, radio, etc,  I invited two
people from the audience to sit at the client laptops and open up the
message in the draft folder.  I did the same on the server which was being
projected for the audience.  I instructed the operators to set Outlook
Express back to work "On Line", then do a SEND on the message.  I did the
same.  I then showed the audience there were no messages in the INBOX of my
computer (server) and had the clients confirm the same on theirs.  I brought
up the Paclink AGW screen and demonstrated CONNECT to start the transfers,
then set the Paclink polling for 10 minutes.

The 2m radio started chirping and I turned down the volume so it could be
heard, but not interfere with my presentation.

All this took about 10 - 12  minutes.

I then started the MS Power Point Presentation during which the radio chirps
could be heard from time to time.  In about 15  minutes I noticed Charlie
giving me the high sign that messages had been received in his client
laptop.

The Power Point presentation lasted another 20-25minutes (less than 45
minutes in all) and we then checked the server computer which had a string
of messages in the INBOX.  This included the canned messages from each of
the other computers and responses from Steve, K4CJX in Tennessee, my XYL
back in Deltona.  The client operators confirmed they had also received
these incoming messages.  One client had received a reply from N4KOX who had
received his message from his commercial wireless account on his laptop just
two feet away! (DX!)

I then setup a short test e-mail for the Palm Pilot and we closed out the
meeting and started to pack up the gear.

This entire program took 65-70 minutes.

While we were packing up, the Palm Pilot received the test message - about
three minutes after it had been sent.

This morning I received an e-mail from KB2EV, District Emergency Coordinator
West Central District and Assistant Section Manager of the Northern Florida
Section.  Dixie was unable to attend the meeting due to a family medical
emergency, but wanted to report:  "I returned home this evening about an
hour ago and found all the test messages.  I wanted to let you know that
they came through perfectly."

Our next presentation/demo is scheduled for Dec 4th at the Tampa Hamfest.

73,
bud N0IA
386 574 4124