Recent Club News

The data net is scheduled for Sunday evenings from 1900 to 2100 hours. The net will be held on two repeaters. The first one would be held on January 5^th on the repeater of the South Mountain Radio Amateurs (SMRA) on 145.43 MHz -600 KHz offset 67 Hz tone. The following weeks net will be held on the Keystone VHF Club’s repeater (KVHFC) on 146.97 MHz -600 KHz offset 123/127 Hz tone. The nets will alternate weekly between both clubs repeaters.  Everyone in both clubs would be invited to either net. We will be experimenting with many of the digital modes used in Amateur radio and our primary purpose is to have fun. If you are currently running FT8, then you are ready to participate in this. If you are a newbie to amateur radio or digital communications, we are planning  tech sessions where we will show you what it necessary to become involved.

 

What: Weekly Data Net to be held alternately on the SMRA 145.43, and KVHF 146.97 repeaters.

When: Sunday evenings starting 1900 running until 2100 local time

                1/5/2025  SMRA              5/18/2025 KVHF              9/28/2025 SMRA

                1/12/2925 KVHF              5/25/2025 SMRA             10/5/2025 KVHF

                1/19/2025 SMRA             6/1/2025 KVHF                 10/12/2025 SMRA

                1/26/2025 KVHF              6/8/2025 SMRA                10/19/2025 KVHF

                2/2/2025 SMRA                6/15/2025 KVHF              10/26/2025 SMRA

                2/9/2025 KVHF                 6/22/2025 SMRA             11/2/2025 KVHF

                2/16/2025 SMRA             6/29/2025 KVHF              11/9/2025 SMRA            

                2/23/2025 KVHF              7/6/2025 SMRA                11/16/2025 KVHF

                3/2/2025 SMRA                7/13/2025 KVHF              11/23/2025 SMRA

                3/9/2025 KVHF                 7/20/2025 SMRA             11/30/2025 KVHF

                3/16/2025 SMRA             7/27/2025 KVHF              12/7/2025 SMRA

                3/23/2025 KVHF              8/3/2025 SMRA                12/14/2025 KVHF

                3/30.2025 SMRA             8/10/2025 KVHF              12/21/2025 SMRA

                4/6/2025 KVHF                 8/17/2025 SMRA             12/28/22025 KVHF

                4/13/2025 SMRA             8/24/2025 KVHF

                4/20/2025 KVHF              8/31/2025 SMRA

                4/27/2025 SMRA             9/7/2025 KVHF

                5/4/2025 KVHF                 9/14/2025 SMRA

                5/11/2025 SMRA             9/21/2025 KVHF

*** Any Licensed Ham who can access the appropriate repeater via RF is welcome to join the net

*** The following modes (not limited to those below) may be experimented with

                SSTV *                   QPSK *                 

                Contestia *          8PSK *

                Dominoex *        PSKR *                   * Indicates submodes

                FSQ *                     RTTY *

                Hell *                     Thor *

                IFKP *                    Throb *

                MFSK *                 FT4 (TBD)

                MT63 *                 FT8 (TBD)

                OFDM *                VARAFM

                Olivia *                 VARAHF

                PSK *                     Packet *

 

*** Software recommended for use during net

       

                FLDIGI V 4.2.06 – https://sourceforge.net/projects/fldigi/

                FLMSG V4.0.23 – https://sourceforge.net/projects/fldigi/files/flmsg/

                FLAMP V 2.2.13 – https://sourceforge.net/projects/fldigi/files/flamp/

                MMSSTV V 1.13 – https://hamsoft.ca/pages/mmsstv.php

                Easy PAL SSTV – http://www.vk3evl.com/index.php?Itemid=62id=57option=com_contentview=article

                MMRTTY – https://www.aa5au.com/rtty/getting-started-on-rtty/page-01/

AGW Packet Engine – https://www.soundcardpacket.org/6AGWPrograms.aspx

                AGW Term – https://www.soundcardpacket.org/6AGWPrograms.aspx

• Repeater controller based on the Asterisk PBX
• Add-on module to Asterisk adds repeater functionality by HAMVOIP
• All RF is standard analog FM
• Control by DTMF codes
• Can be grafted onto almost any radio stack
• Create many links – scheduled, ad-hoc
• Supports Echolink on the repeater

First Rule of AllStar:
If you don’t want to interact with AllStar, then don’t. The repeater will work just fine without doing a thing.

Second Rule of Allstar:
Your normal FM radio works with AllStar – no special equipment needed. If you can talk on the repeater, you can use AllStar.

Basic Allstar Commands
AllStar adds and removes links based on DTMF commands starting with a * (star)

ALWAYS announce your DTMF dialing intentions with VOICE before performing the touch tones. “This is (my callsign) dialing node (x)”
*3(NODE) Connect a node
*1(NODE) Disconnect a node
*70 Announce all connected nodes
*76 Disconnect all nodes

What’s a Node?
• It’s just a number, like a short telephone number
• It is NOT a DMR ID
• Most nodes are a five-digit number
• Newer AllStarLink numbering is an “extension” to your existing node rather than assigning new numbers
• 43211, 432111, 432112, etc…
• 46018, 460181,460188, etc…
• Look up nodes by callsign, location, etc. at https://www.allstarlink.org/nodelist
• See what is linked at http://stats.allstarlink.org
• Find nodes by location on the map at https://stats.allstarlink.org/maps/allstarUSAMap.html

Echolink connections look just like AllStarLink connections except the Echolink node numbers have been prefixed with a 3 and padded out to 7 digits with leading zeroes.
For instance, if you want to connect to Echolink node 1234 on the AllStarLink system you would dial *3 followed by 3001234
If you have a 6 digit Echolink node number 123456, you would dial *3 followed by 3123456

Basic Operational Courtesy

• Avoid quick-keying. This is ALWAYS a good practice, but it’s much more important with network-connected nodes. When it is your turn to speak press your PTT, then take a deep breath and wait before speaking.
• Leave at least a second after you hear the telemetry tone of the last transmission before you key up.
• Repeaters will have different courtesy tone lengths and hangtimes.
• Listen before you transmit after linking – be courteous about interrupting an in-progress QSO on a remote system.
• Be smart about linking up a big Allstar network mesh or a busy net
• Always unlink when you’re done, and don’t link many big networks together through our repeaters.
• If you are using fldigi or other data modes on AllStar for any purpose, always disconnect from any nodes that are not participating by issuing an unlink all nodes DTMF *76