Racine County beacon standards
From Megawiki
Contents |
Intro
As part of co-ordinating / mentoring I have found it good to have standards to improve the technical capability and knowledge of that group. I view it as necessary, to ensure usable resources, people and equipment, that they have certain standards, and understand those standards, and skills.
Standards will be tested, and can change. This is no means quashing ANY ideas, if a person has a question about a standard we will discuss/test it.
If it proves to be technically viable arena, we will probably adopt it.
I do not like to get political, and like to stay on the technical side. Politics are above our heads and I find it no fun personally
On to the Fun!
Mailboxes
CALLSIGN-1 Optional operators digression to you to have on, as long as you disable them in and emergency. BBS node should not need to route anything to these, a station can poll the BBS system for mail and other information. The purpose of callsign-1 is for people to do TNC to TNC messaging. Since this is a good skill, I encourage people to try, Since a BBS may be in your area, it has been proven to better use them since they are 24/7 usually.
Beacons
Beacons can clog a frequency. It is highly recommended for a personal station to have beacon 0 or off in their tnc.
The idea to use the APRS coordinates on the beacon is to to show where a station (Telpac Node) is for use. If someone from out of town had to come in and setup shop (without an internet connection)
They could turn on their UIview or AGWTracker, monitor the beacons, and see where the available Telpack Nodes, or NetRom Nodes are located within minutes, instead of looking at a list.
See WI ARES Telpac standards.
Examples of a Telpac node beacon
- =4242.76NW08748.31Wa KC9EOW-10 Telpac Node RACINE, WI 145.530 MHz
Netrom nodes and digipeaters beacons
Beacon 20-30 min.
It is optional to put in GPS coordinates, for now we will try it turned off.
The OD or CD after the NetRom Node would indicate if the digi is open or closed. OD=Open Digi, CD Closed Digi. Most stations would show up on the map with a TCP/IP symbol or the Node symbol to show where they are at on a map.
Digipeating is strongly recommended to be OFF, unless requested by AEC Digital , Your node / digipeater may be requested to turn off/on depending on several factors, Your equipment, location, antenna, coverage, and including discussion in the Racine ARES digital group. This is to keep the networks orderly and clean use of our frequency. It is not necessary to put grid square location, use GPS co-ordinates if needed.
Netrom node Beacon examples
Netrom open digi example:
- =KB9MMA-2 NetRom Node OD, Racine, WI [44.xx.xx.xx]
- =4242.77N/08748.31WnKB9MMA-2 NetRom Node OD, Racine, WI [44.xx.xx.xx]
Netrom closed digi example:
- =KB9MMA-2 NetRom Node CD, Racine, WI [44.xx.xx.xx]
- =4242.77N/08748.31WnKB9MMA-2 NetRom Node CD, Racine, WI [44.xx.xx.xx]
Digipeater Beacon examples
There is no reason to beacon if you have a close digipeater (yours is off)
- =4242.77N/08748.31W#KB9MMA-2 OD, Racine, WI [44.xx.xx.xx]
It is not recommended for a station to beacon through an open digipeater. This takes up valuable airtime, there is no real reason to beacon through it. alternative is to use "heard lists" and "monitor on" command in your TNC.
Netrom
Netrom broadcasts can also become unwieldy ,and kill a freq. Netrom 45-50 minutes. Nodelimit 35 Routes 10
If a gated AX/IP node broadcast is setup, please keep the quality below Min quality =190, or shut off broadcasts to RF on that port Users can find or IP gateway port to the node and MH list the routes.
you can mention AX/IP gateway in beacon (optional)
Closing
Hopefully that documents what we discussed.
As always if something needs to be tested / modified bring it to the group. This can be question / or email to the Racine group coordinator.
