[MVMA] 5 watts on 445 MHz Jams Plastic Bullet

[Maurice Riggins]

From: "William L. Curtice" <william.curtice at ieee.org <mailto:william.curtice at ieee.org>>
Subject: 5 watts on 445 MHz Jams Plastic Bullet
Date: April 24, 2018 at 03:01:42 EDT
To: "'Amateur Radio network using AREDN,	HSMM-MESH and other configurations'" <mvma at mailman.qth.net <mailto:mvma at mailman.qth.net>>


To All:
 
Moe brought the signal to noise plot below to my attention this evening.  It shows significant noise floor shifts on my primary node.  I presume the plot is symptomatic of the node AGC reacting to a strong signal, which appears about every ten minutes.  
 
I tracked the problem to my Winlink Client station… a Baofeng UV5R connected to a TNC/Computer running Winlink Express.  Winlink Express poles the radio mail server about every ten minutes.  The radio was connected to the topmost VHF/UHF omni stick on my tower, located about 12 feet below the plastic case Bullet/Omni.  The ~6 watts from the Baofeng on 445.01… was enough to cause the Bullet noise floor shifts shown below.  Problem went away when I shut down the Baofeng, and also when I changed the Baofeng antenna to a UHF/VHF stick in the attic (which I normally use with Winlink).
 
I have not yet verified if the problem can be duplicated using a different radio.. such as my Icom HT, which presumably is cleaner than the Baofeng.
 
A side issue…. the Bullet rebooted itself a few times this evening… once when Moe and I were trying to talk via VOIP.  The node has not done a self-reboot since I did a power-off reboot a few hours ago.  Tonight’s rain could have been the cause of the reboots if the water made it’s way into a Cat5 connector.
 
The Bullet carries all DHCP service, all dtd traffic, and all tunnels.  I still need to move all services to the Rocket.
 
Bill
 
William L. Curtice
Cell: 937-287-0871
Skype: williamcurtice
 
From: Maurice Riggins [mailto:maurice.riggins at me.com <mailto:maurice.riggins at me.com>] 
Sent: Monday, April 23, 2018 10:34 PM
To: Bill Curtice
Subject: Lost in Space
 
I lost you when you rebooted so that tells me our call was going DCP to APB Omni at maybe 28.8 kbaud… not 4 hops through Tim.
 


Note: I had to resend this with a smaller graphic.