GOLDEN PACKET COMM COORDINATION CHECKLIST 27 July 2012 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- This version Includes lessons learned from 2012: a) importance of 2nd HT on 144.39 for receiving ANSRVR announcements b) Temporarily turn off INTERRUPT display to check your D710 digi, c) New BEACON rates at the end stations, d) 4 AH battery plus a spare seems to be enough for a 3 hour event e) Minimize messages and if used, use BLN#XXXX's to avoid ACKS. OVERALL CHECKLIST: 1) CAMERA: Take a camera and a book. Its worth a thousand packets... The book is in case everything works and You will be there 4 hours! 2) SIGNAL MIRROR: For signalling other peaks in view as part of the Boy Scouts Operation On-Target or any other cooperating target. 3) ARRL PAMPHLETS: Take Ham radio hand-out pamphlets for onlookers 4) APRS HT: (required) Use a 2nd APRS radio (HT) to maintain APRS text communications with the designagted Shack Potato and all other stations using NORMAL APRS on 144.39. Use the root callsign of your station without any SSID. Begin using it as you leave home! Periodically send any status updates via ANSRVR for all to receive. See: http://aprs.org/ansrvr.html The dual band APRS HT can also be used to monitor your local published Voice repeater. Use EL power or long RG58 coax and a beam to the nearest digi to minimize self-QRM to your primary operations on 144.34. 5) BATTERY: You will need about 4 AHrs. Taking 2 4AH batteries will give you a main and a spare. And give you a half-way indication when the first one is out. 6) 144.34 DIGIPEATER: Set up your D7XX APRS digipeater radio BAND-A on 144.34 MHz and set the volume so you can hear what is going on on the channel. This channel is shared with Balloons and ATV, so we want to be aware of any conflicts, and hear how the packets are sounding... 7) BAND-B on 445.925 MHz: Use BAND-B to monitor 445.925 simplex with your two adjacent sites. This avoids any QRM to the 2 meter event channel! This is important! Also a VOICE-RELAY around a failed APRS mountain top will still count. 8) SETTINGS: Set up your D700/D710 radio as a HOPn-N and TEMPn-N digipeater operating in APRS mode. A PC is required for the initial setup of the D700 prior to the event, but is not required during operations. The D710 and D72 can be set up from the front panel. This digipeater radio will be used only for the 144.34 DIGI, for APRS DIGI beacons (STATUS text updated as needed) and for voice UHF coordination on 445.925 MHz voice. See radio settings: www.aprs.org/hamtrails/D700-settings.txt www.aprs.org/hamtrails/D710settings.txt www.aprs.org/hamtrails/D72-settings.txt *** TURN OFF any AUTO-REPLY MESSAGES in the digipeater radio! 9) DUPLICATES: Do not be surprised by the D7XX bug that will cause your own station to digipeat its OWN packet a second time. Fortuneately the others digipeaters will not, because they will see that second one as a dupe. We just live with this quirk. 10) LOGGING: If possible, have a SECOND APRS receive-only station running APRS on the event channel with a PC for logging all packets. This station can be left unattended down at the car or at home since it can hear all packets from your station's digi. Do not let it beacon on the event channel! even once... too much QRM. 11) COORDINATION/STATUS: Use your mobile (enroute) or your APRS HT (note 4 above), to be in communication with everyone at all times on 144.39. LOGON TO ANSRVR early on EVENT day on your normal 144.39 APRS channel even before you leave, so that you will receive all EVENT group messages that day. Checkin to either the "CQ AT" Eastern group or the "CQ OT" On Target group. To do this, use your assigned station callsign (without SSID) send a message to ANSRVR and include in the message your stataus: MESSAGE TO: ANSRVR MESSAGE BODY: CQ AT leaving home... etc... -or- CQ OT headed up the mountain to... etc ANSRVR GROUP STATUS: These messages will be reflected by the ANSRVR engine to all other similar stations who have also sent their message to the same AT or OT group on ANSRVR. You will remain logged onto ANSRVR for a few hours, so send a new message each time your status changes so that others will see your status and so that you remain logged onto the ANSRVR. This lets all other participants over the 2000 miles to see the status of all other stations in real time, even before the -event- links are established. See http://aprs.org/ansrvr.html 12) BEACON RATE: The ideal rates woiuld taper the rates from 5 minutes from the end stations to 12 minutes in the middle, but unfortunately, the D7XX radios only have the low 5 and 10 minute beacon rates. So lets set the end stations to 5 minutes and keep the others all at 10. This will better balance propabilities. 13) DIGIPEATER CHECKOUT: With the menu 625 INTERRUPT Display set to FULL ALWAYS, you cannot see your own TX meter to confirm your digi is digipeating. Tempporarily turn it off to see if you are TXing. 14) IRLP/ECHOLINK: As an additional exercise of own ham radio skills, it might be nice to try to also use your local Echolink node to connect to the designated ECHOLINK CONFERENCE NODE (if any) for the event. This way we can all TALK if needed. This is more of a test of capability than essential, since few of us do this regularly. (We should practice!)... . 15) CALLSIGNS: Use ONLY the designated callsigns and SSID's below in the DIGIPEATER D700/D710/D72. The SSID's help us remember the sequence from Georgia to Maine. Use the ROOT CALL (without SSID) for your secondary station on 144.39 but use the SSID always on 144.34 during the event: APPALACHIAN TRAIL PCT TRAIL ----------------- --------- SPRNGR-1 SANDGO-1 CLNGMN-2 SOCAL-2 ROAN-3 etc COMERS-4 etc AOMTN-5 WHTRCK-6 (HWKBLL-6, or STNYMN-6) MDMTNS-7 GDHILL-8 CAMLBK-9 HIGHPT (monitor only unless needed) SAMSPT-10 GRYLCK-11 NHRELY-12 MTWASH-13 SUGRLF-14 KATHDN-15 LOKOUT-1 Lookout montain 1 hop beyond Springer HTSVLE-1 Huntsville, 2 hops beyond Springer STNMTN-1 Atlanta Georgia SAWNEE-1 Sawnee Mountain GA BTBALD-1 Brass Town Bald CTLINK-1 Connecticut Group if they link up etc For brevity in TESTING, just refer to the SSID numbers for the main line stations. Abbreviate others as needed. If authorized as an aux or alternate station, use the SSID of the main line station where your beacon will enter the chain. But do not beacon without permission of the main line station. 16) STATUS TEXT: Keep it BRIEF. first must be your FCC call, then update your Position Beacon STATUS to inform others what is going on at your station. Here are some examples: Early on, you might want to beacon your intentions.. such as "WB4APR till 4pm". Later on, once you have received several other stations, you might want to beacon "See 1-7" meaning you are seeing packets from the main digi stations 1 through 7, etc 17) MESSAGES: APRS MESSAGES are inefficient since they require ACKS and just add additional packet load to the channel which can collide with the primary objective of getting a golden packet from one-end to the other. Since our digipeaters are already sending a packet every 10 minutes, (5 from the ends), we can use the 28 or more STATUS TEXT characters in these beacons to convey useful information. If we do get enough success to allow MSGS then send your message as a BLN#XXXXX (incrementing the # from 0 upwards for each new bulletin. By using bulletins, everyone can read the mail along the way. The extra bytes XXXXX go along for free, so if you want to indicate a RECEPIENT, use their abbreviation and/or SSID there. Such as BLN2MD-7 would be an outgoing 2nd bulletin line to MARYLAND MOUNTAINS-7, though everyone else can read it along the way. REPLY: If you get an incoming STATUS or BULLETIN addressed to you, please respond in your STATUS or a BULLETIN so that the other end konws you got it. This has a much higher probablity of success than ACKS. ANSRVR MESSAGE (ANNOUNCEMENT) SERVER: Use your 144.39 APRS HT to maintain your status on normal APRS via the ANSRVR using the CQ AT or CQ OT group as noted above. Once every half hour or so, UPDATE your main-line STATUS and also send out a status update on 144.39 via the ANSRVR to keep everyone informed of your status. EVENT MESSAGES: IF we get end-to-end main-line beacons successful, then we may authorize an end-to-end SHORT message test. Once those are successful, we may authorize other aauxilliary or off-line stations or hikers to join with their BEACONS on a 5 minute update. EMAIL: If you have smartphone email capabilities you can send an occasional update on our at-golden-packet@YAHOOGROUPS.COM every hour or so to keep everyone informed. MESSAGE OVERFLOW! Be warned, the D7 and D700 can only hold 10 or 16 messages/BULLETINS and then it will REJECT ALL FURTHER MESSAGES. You will not be alerted, but your station will then hear no more and you will be jamming the net with REJECT packets. So copy down notes of any important messages, because once you READ one message, the NOT-READ flag is cleared on ALL messages, so they are all availaible then for pushing out of the buffer. *** MESSAGE BUG!!!! There may be some D710 radios that will ACK all incoming BULLETINS and messages to ALL. If so, replace the radio or update it with new firmware! SUMMARY CHECKLIST for any COORDINATION COMMS (subject to change): 0) FRIDAY before you leave, print out this page, and adjacent sites 1) Begin day with msg to ANSRVR: CQ AT or CQ OT from root station call 2) Initial coordination on ur PUBLISHED repeater for adjacent nodes 3) Monitor 445.925 simplex direct when you are in place 4) As emergency backup VOICE on the AT channel 144.34 might work 5) Use assigned AT-CALLSIGN-SSID on DIGIPEATER station on 144.34 6) Use same root CALL on other 144.39 coordination packet station 7) Maintain your status via occasional ANSRVR message on 144.39 8) Do not message stations on 144.34 event channel until OK'ed. 9) If you do message on .34, send to BLN#XXXXX 9) Remember all identical root callsigns will capture a message A) but only the SSID-MATCHING station will send back an ACK B) Do NOT expect acks! They are unreliable. Assume ur msg worked. C) Minimize messages on 144.39 due to desensing your main event RX D) Keep HOP7-7,HOP7-7 only for Posit Beacon (containing fresh status) F) Use HOP2-2 or so or 144.39 for coordination messages or others... G) READ your incoming messages periodically to make sure your buffer does not saturate with unread messages and then send REJECTS (D700 holds 10 (or 16?) but D710 holds 100) Save settings and callsigns in a PM, so that if power is cycled, you come back up and can continnue operating properly. Be sure to have set AUTO-PM-SAVE-OFF so that any screw-ups during operating do not get re-saved into the PM... Bob, WB4APR