[fpac] [FADCA] Increase activity?

[Chuck Hast]

On 7/19/06, Jean-Paul ROUBELAT <jpr at f6fbb.org> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> We added the white pages to FPAC to remove any kind of via, numbers and
> commas.
>
Jean-Paul you beat me to it on that, we do not have all of the switches moved
to fpac linux yet, but as we do, wp will allow you to make connections to
distant stations over the network without needing to know the X.121 address.

You just connect to the node and then issue a connect to your destination.
If you can reach a linux fpac switch, give it a try. Better yet, host
one in your
area and then you can play with it.

Bud, your work has been a real cover it like the dew covers the south... Indeed
I think that one of the things that we need to do is to use the
winlink facilities
if for nothing else than to put it  "through it's paces" I too need to
do so. My big
problem is that I normally do not run any windows (my linux desktop and laptop
do everything I need so I may bring up windows once every 3-4 months) we need
a *nix app (this is for all unix like systems) that can be used by
those of us running
Linux, Mac OS-X, BSD, or whatever flavor of unix so we do not have to fire up a
machine just to do winlink...

Beyond that, I believe that we ought to add the converse facilities to
the mix, at
least 1 fpac switch in each area should be running a converse server, there are
multiple reasons for this:
1. makes a nice IM facility
2. DX spotting (we can link to say Bernard's system for the DX spotter)
3. Disaster management, there are messages that are "one liners that
need to go to
    mulitple sites, but not as a official message"
4. Storm or other spotting functions.

I hope to start testing one out on my switch in Tampa to learn how to
bring it up and
on line, the conference facility is just one more app running on a
Linux FPAC swtich,
we ought to add it once we have the other pieces down.

Legacy, there will be fpac DOS, ROSE, NetRom and other facilities out there for
who knows how long, FPAC Linux allows most of them to be integrated, indeed
several of us have been experimenting with the NetRom piece, you can connect
to k4gbb or kp4djt and when you do the Nodes list you will see netrom
calls at the
bottom of the list, the ability is in each and every FPAC Linux
facility, if it makes
old netrom users feel more at home we should think about turning it on.
ONE THING.... NetRom DOES add  a lot of over head, of course on the axip links
it is no big deal, probably on 9k6 links it is not too much of  a
deal, but if you have
a slow link it will be a pain because that it sends ALL of the nodes
list from neighbor
to neighbor (I know I have a LISTEN screen running when I am working
at the computer
and I see my machine, and all of the others send those nodes list, and
when you do
a netrom connect each packet has 20 bytes of overhead, (FPAC only has between
3 and 5 bytes of level 3 overhead) so once we get people back on we need to show
them the advantages of letting the WP do the routing, it is fast, very
lean and low
overhead.

Now that said, we have had good input, good comments and good observations,
we have had input from 3 continents, and two different list (some of
you on one list
may not see the comments from the other, we will try to make sure that
you get the
cross list notes). I think that we need to educate our people, and
beyond that give
them some sort of incentive to get on and maybe have some sort of
contest and give
out a prize, perhaps it will stick and we will see it become a yearly
activity, but hams
being hams, I think if we get people to realize that these facilities
are up and running
and they now go somewhere, they will start to look at getting on line
and playing
around with them. BUT we need users on each end so that users in wherever.cou
put your favorite nation id in the .cou, can get to overthere.cou. We
need to move
more switches to fpac linux so that Dave does not hear those complaints about
having to use the X.121 addresses, without DNS the internet would be in the same
mess, WP is sort of our FPAC DNS, it maps X.121 addresses to calls, at least to
the port where that call was last heard.

We need people to work on code, this is something that young people like to do,
it maybe a way to get some youth back into the hobby, writting good code is a
artist endevor, good coders are also very artistic, we just need to
find some of them
and see if we can get them interested and help them get a ticket at
the same time
so they can play with their art and add to it.

OK, now I must get back to work... Got a fellow that wants to measure ground
water with a FloodAdvisor, got to check out how to make sure sand does not
get into the dip tube so he can bury it in the ground...
-- 
Chuck Hast  -- KP4DJT --
To paraphrase my flight instructor;
"the only dumb question is the one you DID NOT ask resulting in my going
out and having to identify your bits and pieces in the midst of torn
and twisted metal."