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The CCARC/CCARES Digital Group (PACKET) meets
the 3rd Tuesday of every month.
Next Meeting:
Tuesday
July 20th, 7:00 PM
Clark County Sheriff's West Precinct
505 NW 179th Street
Right off the I-5 near the fairgrounds
The Clark County PACKET net is on 144.990 at 1200 Baud. The
BBS is currently W7AIA-8. All hams are invited to use the system unless it is
under ‘Emcomm’ status where it becomes dedicated to CCARES/RACES use. We are
working to provide a 440.060 input at 1200 baud as a second port and will
announce when it is operational. There are seven digipeaters on 144.99 to use
located throughout Clark County.
Clark County Winlink 2000 RMS operations are on 144.920 at
1200 Baud (K7YFJ-10 in Battle Ground) and 441.525 at 9600 baud (K7GJT-10 in
east Vancouver). There is a VHF digipeater (WOODLN) on Woodland Heights on
144.92 if you need it to reach the K7YFJ-10 RMS.
At the next meeting
we will be continuing with the Outpost program and each Packeteer who is
running Outpost is asked to send a message to at least one other Packeteer
each week. Also, be sure to get the latest version
We should have a PACKET
station up and running at 6:30 PM so you can just stop by and take a look.
You don't have to stay for the meeting / get-together and yes you can have a
cookie. We will start the discussion on PACKET Radio but you never know what
we will talk about next. Oh yeah…
there are always home made cookies or brownies. There is a soda machine, a
snack machine, and a coffee machine there too.
Rob
K7JAO
The Clark County Digital
Group is a 2 meter PACKET Radio and Winlink 2000 group
but it includes PSK31 and other HF digital modes. It is an informal group
with about a dozen regular attendees.
When we meet anything goes. There is a topic for the evening but we
always stray to other topics and just have a good time.
The ARES/RACES group
has two portable emergency radio stacks (4 radios mounted in a wood stand)
that includes a portable PACKET Radio station and it is always there and
almost always set up and running. It only takes a few minutes to set up and
when someone new to PACKET Radio attends, we always set it up.
PACKET Radio: PACKET Radio started as an HF mode in 1980 but
it took a little too long in transmitting to be efficient so it evolved into
PACTOR. It is the same principle in that it sends error free text messages
but PACTOR does it faster and that works a whole lot better for the HF bands.
PACKET Radio was also on the 144 MHz and 440 MHz bands and it has remained
popular on the 144 MHz band (2 meters)
PACTOR: Since sending error free messages is a
great idea for both fun and in emergency situations, PACKET was not forgotten
when PACTOR became the favorite text message mode. There are two PACTOR paths
available to us here in Vancouver.
1.
The first is a
PACTOR Gateway and is located on the PACKET network at W7AIA-2. Instructions for accessing this capability
is located on page 5 in Annex D PACKET Information of the CCARES Operations
Handbook.
2.
Improvements have
been made on PACTOR so now we can send in a text message and it can come out
into anyone's regular SMTP email address.
Now a Ham Radio Operator can send out a message on ham radio
frequencies and it will go onto the Internet to be delivered. This also means
anyone can send an email message (just text) to a Ham Radio Operator with the
proper equipment. Now not just anyone
can send emails to a Ham at random but a Ham Radio Operator who is using the
Winlink system can get it set up for you.
This combination of software and hardware is called the Winlink 2000
system. To learn more about the
Winlink 2000 system, click here.
Winlink 2000: Access to the Winlink 2000 (WL2K) system
using VHF/UHF RMS systems is done through a Winlink Radio Message Server
(RMS) ‘Gateway’ station. We have two
dedicated WL2K Gateways in Clark County to support Winlink operations,
K7YFJ-10 (144.920/1200 baud) and K7GJT-10 (441.525/9600 baud). These two gateways are not connected
to the Clark County 144.99 PACKET network.
Additionally, there
is a digipeater in north county on 144.92 to support stations that cannot
access the K7YFJ-10 RMS directly. This
node’s alias is WOODLN.
There is an
additional VHF WL2K RMS in Clark County on the 145.53 open access PACKET
system and is hosted by Lynn/KA7CTT-10.
Lynn’s HF RMS callsign is KA7CTT and his HF frequencies are available
on the www.winlink.org website under HF reports.
Winlink is very
popular with RVers and boaters and especially to ARES groups (Amateur Radio
Emergency Service). Winlink 2000 was used a lot after Katrina hit the gulf
coast. Fire Dept and Police Dept
phones and radios were knocked out for days but Ham Radio Operators brought
in their portable emergency ham radio stations and sent emergency traffic by
voice and text messages. The Winlink
system simply reached out to where they could access the Internet and sent messages
from the Gulf Coast to the rest of the world.
This is just an
overview of what the Ham Radio digital modes are doing in Clark County so to
find out more come to a meeting or jump on the Internet and Google – “PACKET
radio” or “Winlink 2000”.
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