[FADCA] Re: Networking, Hi speed Hf, et al

[Bill Sinbine]

Below is a copy of what I sent to Rick kv9u and the linlink group. 
Can anyone that is much better than I send a reply to this message 
with more information than what I did please? You can either sent 
your reply to me and I'll get it to Rick and the list or you can send 
it direct to Rick. His email address is in this message..

73, Bill N4XEO

CU all at the tech conference Saturday!!!!

At 03:45 PM 8/18/2005, Rick Williams wrote:
>
>2). Is it true that Windows XP and other versions of Windows after 
>MS DOS are not able to auto boot? If you lose power to a computer 
>driven node and you need it to restore to full operation when 
>unattended can this be done in current MS OS's? This seems to be one 
>of the main factors driving the use of Linux FPAC with FADCA in Florida.

Windows will auto boot. I have mine set up that way here at the house.

The main reason that we are starting to move to Linux FPAC is that 
the dos version hasn't had any updates in YEARS.....
The Linux version already has many more options to use. I don't think 
we will ever move the entire network over to linux but having key 
sites running it will add so much more that we can do with it. 
Winblows just has too much overhead and isn't stable enough to use at 
all the remote sites that we have. It takes MUCH more horse power in 
windows to do the same job with fpac using a old 486 with 8 meg of 
ram running in dos. This is why we have never looked at running fpac 
in windows. I don't even know if it would run in windoze!!!

>
>3). Is there anyone on here from FADCA or who might know how and why 
>different network node software is used. Namely, comparing the FPAC 
>and Flexnet. Or steer me toward someone who has experience with both 
>and who has that knowledge. I have talked with others, such as the 
>FlexNet folks in New England, but everyone seems to only know their 
>own network and pretty much ignores anything else. I suppose that is 
>human nature:) But still, when you consider the tremendous 
>development effort of world wide amateur radio software solutions, 
>it is painful to see how much work has gone into what may be dead 
>end solutions, when what we really need may not be well addressed. 
>Or at least the energies are not being focussed in that direction. 
>Rightfully, though, the developer is usually going to do things that 
>interest that individual and you can not blame them for that. But 
>what if there was some kind of critical mass or formation of a group 
>who can come up with desirable designs of what is needed?


I'll cross post this to the FADCA reflector and send you any replies 
that I get Rick.

I'll leave the answers to others that are much better at explaining 
it but I will have so comments here also.

FPAC in the Linux version has almost all of the networks built in, 
Rose, netrom etc. All you have to do is set it up and run it.
One of the main reasons we here in Florida went to ROSE years ago was 
that netrom didn't work for us for what we needed. With Florida being 
flat we have no big hills or mountains to get hundreds of miles in 
one hop. Our sires are on average 25 to 30 miles apart. We are now 
trying to push sites upwards of 50 miles. With running netrom with 
all the overhead that it takes for all the nodes to know where 
everyone is there wasn't much space left for the traffic.

With the ROSE protocol it is easier to set up our network in a 
hardened fashion. We know where and how our routing will work and we 
have alternate routes set up if a backbone would go down. We took 
this approach with keeping smaller lans to reduce the "hidden 
transmitter syndrome" . When we were running netrom and the band 
would open we say a reduction in data flow. This is why we opted for 
small lans with dedicated backbones. Works much better .

Some of us have looked into flexnet years ago and it didn't fit in 
with the network that we needed to have. I couldn't even get a copy 
of the node software so we just gave up and continued improving our 
FPAC network. Now there is no turning back. We did loose a lot of our 
network after 4 major hurricanes came through here last year. The 
only up side to it is that with needing to rebuild sites we can 
improve them also.

And YES Florida is still a long way from getting back to where we 
were before last year. I still don't have my house finished and I'm a 
lot better off than a lot of people here. Enough about that....

I'll stop here and see what type of replies we get.

sites and lists
www.fadca.org        Florida Amateur Digital Radio Association web 
page and listserver.
www.qsl.net/fpac    The dos fpac list and listserver.
www.f6fbb.org         To get to the Linux FPAC site and listserver.


>Thanks for any help on this.
>
>73,
>
>Rick, KV9U


No problem Rick

>Linlink mailing list
>Linlink at wetnet.net
>http://wetnet.net/mailman/listinfo/linlink


Think about it .....
A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text.
Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?
A: Top-posting.
Q: What is the most annoying thing on usenet and in e-mail?

73, Bill Sinbine
n4xeo at bellsouth.net