• good info 2 share

    From Skuz@9:91/1 to All on Thu Jun 1 22:53:13 2017
    Msg : 116 of 119 Rcv Pvt Loc
    From : White-Knight-32-KS 01 Jun 17 18:28:54
    To : Skuz
    Subj : Re: SolarPi BBS =============================================================================== Hiya Skuz!

    bbs.solarpi.net

    http://telnetbbsguide.com/bbs/solar-pi-bbs/

    I'm not for certain, as I went thru too many BBS's that night, but I think
    this is the one with telnet & packet AX.25 access. They do have dx cluster! But it seems to be a slow moving board, I was the last 5 or 6 callers,
    waiting on info.

    If I can duplicate this,and if possible, I'll add and extra radio for 10m HF, for long distance message passing, in addition to 145.010 MHz, 2m VHF link,
    all on one BBS woud be pretty kick ass! I may just use the Orange Pi as a normal pc, on Ubuntu Server LTS, I don't install the offbeat releases, but I will mess with them as live usb boot.

    The only dreadful thing about HF packet, is changing the tones selection
    (which is nothing), but the HF/VHF mode isn't bad either, it's the speed
    rate! I've used the WEFAX option, on the KPC-2, on HF, and it worked great, but the baud rate on HF rolls off to 300! Unlike VHF, where I cruise along at 1200 baud! I'm assuming 6m/50 MHz follows VHF, but 30 MHz and below, you change tone sets and speed rates.

    White-Knight-32-KS
    aka KA0YCU

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A33 (Windows/32)
    * Origin: flupH | fluph.darktech.org (9:91/1)
  • From Skuz@9:91/1 to All on Thu Jun 1 22:53:55 2017
    Msg : 117 of 119 Rcv Pvt Loc
    From : White-Knight-32-KS 01 Jun 17 18:49:28
    To : Skuz
    Subj : Re: Pi to CC1101 RF Module =============================================================================== Hiya Skuz!

    I'll peek at that in a bit.

    I found the PiTNC's and they look pretty kickass!

    Now, I have been turning over a few google rocks and nosing around & studying what I found. Which is:

    1- much discontent with TAPR, who appears to be sitting on their cans, for roughly a decade.

    2- Germans have come up with a very refined & improved kick ass AX.25
    protocol, I believe it to be FLEXNET. Seems related to JNOS, here's my link:

    http://nl3asd.tripod.com/flexnet.html

    3- There is a BBS, running some custom stuff, that I'm totally unfamiliar
    with, called SIMNET. Here's my link, on that:

    http://www.uuhec.net/simnet/

    My main concern, with all of the above, is simply compatibility worries! I'm really usually anxious to try the better new stuff, like this German AX.25, which seems to be much faster & reliable & more flexible, than before. It
    has fairly wide popularity in Europe and gaining individual traction here, states side, as well.

    Thinking if I missed anything? I'm still trying to digest those 3! I need more coffee and another cigarette, for that!

    White-Knight-32-KS
    aka KA0YCU

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A33 (Windows/32)
    * Origin: flupH | fluph.darktech.org (9:91/1)
  • From Skuz@9:91/1 to All on Thu Jun 1 22:54:39 2017
    Msg : 118 of 119 Rcv Pvt Loc
    From : White-Knight-32-KS 01 Jun 17 19:38:46
    To : Skuz
    Subj : Re: Merged BBS & Packet Radio BBS =============================================================================== Hiya again, Skuz!

    I did forget one thing! VHF packet isn't limited to 1200 baud! If ya crazed
    & brazen with soldering irons, you can hotrod your radio's for 9600 baud, if
    it don't have connectors for that already! 2400, you can still go thru
    speaker & mic lines, like normal.

    That ch*t rocks! If you live near a major
    airport, with 2400 baud TNC, you can decode 747 telemetry! First pulse off runway, will have flight number, after that anything heard is anybody's
    guess. Nice to know when to duck, when one of those big birds loses oil pressure, on too many engines...your'e looking at a few miles of wreckage, on those planes! Just add a scanner n go with it!

    What goes on at 9600 baud, some hamsat's run this, the hot rodding means you have to tie you TNC output directly into the modulator, behind the
    pre-emphasis filter. Otherwise, you lose the starting bits, from the phase rolloff. Same again, for your TNC input, it needs to come directly from demodulator/discriminator, before the de-emphasis filtering, for the same reasons. Now, I haven't looked yet, at PiTNC's, to see what their top limit is, but I haven't heard or seen anything going hotter than 9600 baud, over RF!

    General transmit mode is SSB, however, you can run FM transmit, as AFSK,
    rather than FSK, on SSB. FM AFSK is how I bounced off the MIR station, in
    that day, and landed in Chicago, IL, from KS, on a 2m hand held! SAREX, non-mil shuttle hops, were also possible, at that time, along with Dovesat (DO-17), I was there and running when it came back alive, for a short time before it failed & went back into safemode, pulsing out MBLCTL strings. I never had 2m & 70cm all-mode rigs, to do anything else! College budgets, I
    bet still suck! There is one big trick, to space comm's, I'll not lie to
    you, on this part, you will be juggling a lot of knobs, at once! First, you know how the train horn changes pitch, at a crossing, right? Running digi modes, you need to hear that train horn at the same pitch, all the way by, or you lose bits, bytes, n maybe whole bauds again! This doppler effect is compensated by your rig's frequency, if FM, it's fairly easy, tune .005 MHz high of your target freq., at the start of the orbit pass. Then tune on the nose, when high overhead. Then tune .005 MHz low towards the end of the
    pass. Really pretty darned easy, on FM, as it's channellized! I wasn't fortunate enough, then for dual axis antenna rotors, so imagine dialing those by hand, on top of rig freq! I was setting up, for pc controlled rotators & yes, the right rig, it'll tune ya rig, for the doppler shift too! Yeah, cheating big time, but fun! I watched the screen for the doppler & retuned, while on fixed antennas! You can do that with a cheapie scanner too! But it will eat up a lot of channels, as you need at least 3, for each sat!

    Now, solar panels, mine run me locally here (at my speed shop/car parts
    store) about $130, for a 1x3 foot panel, at (they don't advertise this) 17.5 Vdc, for 1 amp, and it's either 15 or 18 watt. Well, regulated down to
    12Vdc, it is 1 amp, but you need abt 14 V to charge 12V battery. When I was running the numbers, it didn't make much sense, until I found it buried in
    the little literature flyer, the 17.5 Vdc,is hidden! Cloudy day, voltage
    rolls of to 2/3, I can't say for current yet, those were quickie open circuit checks! I have 10 amps worth, right now & need to shoot for 4X! Then I'd
    only pay for my 240 Vac window a/c! Try your metro hardware stores, you
    should be able to snag them, on sale, for like $75-$80 each.

    I hope that helps!

    White-Knight-32-KS
    aka KA0YCU

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A33 (Windows/32)
    * Origin: flupH | fluph.darktech.org (9:91/1)
  • From Skuz@9:91/1 to All on Thu Jun 1 22:55:51 2017
    Msg : 119 of 119 Rcv Pvt Loc
    From : White-Knight-32-KS 01 Jun 17 20:56:17
    To : Skuz
    Subj : Re: Merged BBS & Packet Radio BBS =============================================================================== Hiya Skuz!

    I got that github link for the Raspberry driver bookmarked for now, it looks good, now I need to see more about the controller.

    I sent the link on the solar pi earlier, but I don't think it was
    alcoholiday, but I'll double check, on the vhf link again. Like I said, I might be confused, but SolarPi BBS does have linkage to dx clusters. I had tried 2 of them closest to me, in OK, neither seem to work, none of the gateways of ampr.org seem to work, or the 2 in NZ, that I looked at. I hope one somewhere still flys! I thought that they would be no different than
    here! So much, for toying around in telnet! Who knows, I still need to look at echolinks, but, I thought those were for voice comm's, maybe I'm off my rocker again!

    White-Knight-32-KS
    aka KA0YCU

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A33 (Windows/32)
    * Origin: flupH | fluph.darktech.org (9:91/1)
  • From Skuz@9:91/1 to All on Thu Jun 1 22:57:16 2017
    Msg : 121 of 121 Rcv Pvt Loc
    From : White-Knight-32-KS 01 Jun 17 22:39:45
    To : Skuz
    Subj : more solar =============================================================================== Hiya Skuz,

    When I took care of Dad, I was rarely home much, other than maybe 4 to 6 hrs, for 4 days/week, so I had minimal usage & bill was for abt 49 to 53 KW.Hr/month. Boiling those numbers down, I could run my place on a cheesy
    200 watt inverter, for 3 flourescents and 4 alarm clocks! But my usage has doubled, since then & I need to expand by 4, instead of 2x panels.

    I haven't bought batteries yet, still looking over local options yet, no freight weught that way! I'm working on 12Vdc to 120Vac system, which means,
    I still pay for any 240 Vac appliance use, like window a/c! That's fine, for general survival & backup from storms. If you have to have a 240 Vac
    inverter output, then you must go either 24 or 48, or even higher inverter/battery system. I can't justify the expense of 48Vdc systems, the efficiency isn't there, for me. So, that leaves 24 Vdc inverter/battery systems, that means double the panels & batteries, of a 12 Vdc system! So,
    be braced for that expense!

    That's just one of those things that folks just have to decide for
    themselves, 12 or 24 volt systems, and what determines that is the need for
    240 Vac.

    Now, this area, at my location, the worst time of year for short daylight
    hour days, is usually Dec, anywhere you go, but here, it's 4.7 or 4.8 hr
    days. I use that to figure my DC generation rate, of X KW/day, I look at summertime as bonus hours, nothing more. And figure from there. The avg.
    solar declination is 37 degrees, if I'm thinking right, the angle from horizontal, southwards, to the sun. Add another 90 degrees over the top, northwards, and that will be the angle of your tip axis, if you go single
    axis tracking. For major cities, none near here, but I avg'd out OK City &
    KS City weather, for number of cloudy days/month & rainy days, just for rough payoff figures, which is what you are going to need to convince any banker & general info. That is also how I got decent solar hrs/day, for each month. You can figure yearly cost/savings fairly accurately, that way. I made up a chart for this area, off of that NWS data.

    My goal is 12 Vdc @ 40 Amps, for that 4.7 Hr day. 12 x 40 = 480 watts/hr.
    480 watts x 4.7 hrs = 2256 watts/day = 2.256 KW/day. Simple enough, that's
    my planned generation rate, to break even. That is also = 15.792 KW/week = 67,116 KW/month (4.25 week/month), not too shabby and covers my usage fairly well.

    Now, batteries! Here's a rating standard, that you likely not see on batteries, except on small electronics. Amp/Hr rating is simple, best
    example is like cell phone recharger battery packs (I'm using my own in this example). 10,000mA = 10A, not too big of conversion, just move decimal 3 places, from milliamps to amps. Now, my cell phone battery is about 2 Amp/Hr, which means I can put a 1 amp load on it for 2 hrs, no more. Using this 10 Amp/Hr charging pack, to recharge it, means I get 5 complete recharges,
    before I need to poop up the charger pack again! Just Amps per Hour,
    dividing math. You are always going to get rainy/cloudy/snowy days, figure those days into your battery array charging time, back to the NWS weather
    data, for your area!

    You can use normal car batteries for small projects, but not ideal for a
    home! Commercial Marine Deep Cycle batteries are better suited for hard draw
    & long time draw. This is under more thought, at the momment, as I'm still collecting panels!

    White-Knight-32-KS
    aka KA0YCU

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A33 (Windows/32)
    * Origin: flupH | fluph.darktech.org (9:91/1)
  • From Skuz@9:91/1 to All on Thu Jun 1 23:58:21 2017
    Msg : 123 of 124 Pvt Loc
    From : Skuz 01 Jun 17 23:32:15
    To : White-Knight-32-KS
    Subj : Re: replies =============================================================================== On 06/01/17, White-Knight-32-KS said the following...

    Feel free to inject these into the posts and one kinda needs some usage, other than the usual offshore spam!

    Thanks man.. I think that VISION BATTERY USA, iNC is not far from where you live The address is 1824E 7th Street, Suite D Joplin, MO. 64801
    Telphone +1-417-625-4842
    Toll Free 800-899-5115
    FAX +1 417-625-4843
    E-mail sales-usa@vision-batt.com

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A33 (Windows/32)
    * Origin: flupH | fluph.darktech.org (9:91/1)
  • From Skuz@9:91/1 to All on Thu Jun 1 23:59:05 2017
    Msg : 124 of 124 Rcv Pvt Loc
    From : White-Knight-32-KS 01 Jun 17 23:49:19
    To : Skuz
    Subj : local solar batteries =============================================================================== Hiya Skuz!

    Why I hadn't decided yet, on the batteries is this mess. Price to start up weight and lifetime.

    First, I was going to have my battery array & inverter in a shed, between my house and panels, and beside my driveway. Driveway? Easy enough, in case I screw up or other, I can jump start or jump charge from this shed, if need
    be! I likely have put way too much thought into this, but nobody takes a
    dump, without a recovery/escape plan! I plan to get just a wooden temporary mower type shed, that I can take with me, when I move. I know full well that they are flimsy and I'll need to get timbers to beef up the side walls & make battery racks with, for the weight. And mount the charge controller &
    inverter on the back wall.

    These days some inverters are wifi, cool, but be careful of IoT stuff! Ever since Nov. of 2004, there has really been no wifi security & WPA2PSK is about as broken as last year's demo derby car. If you know what your'e doing, you can brute force out the temporal key, in it!

    Also, some E-Bay inverters I've seen lately have charge controllers built in!
    I also believe in spare inverters, heat is the usual enemy & I'm always
    adding extra cooling to stuff. Fans & ventilation (hydrogen gas) are needed
    & need to be planned for. I want my shed safe enough to smoke in and yet not freeze!

    The batteries themselves, well, I hear of folks using 6 volt deep cycle, in series pairs, in place of single 12 ones. The why is simple, they are close
    to the same size, so the individual 6 v cell is about double and so is the 'ampacity', amp capacity. I've yet to decide if that is worth the cost, as 6 volt batteries have been horribly high here. And for the most part, I'm only looking at locally available stuff, at my local 'speed shop' (car parts)
    store. I'm really trying to focus on space, price, weight, and can I get the two walls to hold it? That's another thing, that folks just have to decide
    on, for themselves, because 12 Vdc system only drives 120 Vac inverters, and likewise, if you go 240 Vac inverters, you just doubled your expense in batteries and panels, and likewise in 48 Vdc inverter systems, you just quadrupled those two needs again! This is where the expense is! And why I went 12 Vdc system, to drive only 120 Vac inverters! Going solar power is
    much more than just numbers, you have to mix your taste or needs & wants, to what's actually affordable for you! I can't stress that enough!

    White-Knight-32-KS
    KA0YCU

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A33 (Windows/32)
    * Origin: flupH | fluph.darktech.org (9:91/1)
  • From White-Knight-32-KS@9:91/1 to Skuz on Sun Jun 4 12:03:14 2017
    Hello All,

    If I made any mistakes or you have any questions, please feel free to use
    these two emails. I'll attempt to do all fixes & answers, as time permits,
    as vacation is ending shortly.

    white-knight-32-ks@inbox.lv
    KA0YCU@inbox.lv

    Note the .LV, PGP encryption is available.

    White-Knight-32-KS
    aka KA0YCU

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A33 (Windows/32)
    * Origin: flupH | fluph.darktech.org (9:91/1)