GOLDEN PACKET COMM COORDINATION CHECKLIST 22 July 11 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 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) ARRL PAMPHLETS: Take Ham radio hand-out pamphlets for onlookers 3) APRS HT: Use your APRS handheld to monitor your local published Voice repeater and the APRS side to maintain your station contact on 144.39 via the global APRS CQSRVR so you can coordinate with text messages anywhere else on the trial in real time. Use the root call- sign of your station without any SSID even before your leave home! See how: http://aprs.org/cqsrvr.html 4) HT#2: Take another dual band HT or two HT's to help you maintiain a listening watch on the published repeaters of your two adjacent nodes. 5) DIGIPEATER: Set up your D700/D710 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... 6) 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. 7) 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 DIGI, for APRS Station Messages and for voice 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! 8) LOGGING: If possible, have a SECOND APRS low-power 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. 9) COORDINATION/STATUS: Use your mobile (enroute) or your APRS HT (note 3 above, to be in communication with everyone at all times. LOGON TO CQSRVR 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" group or the "CQ PCT" group. To do this, use your assigned station callsign (without SSID) send a message to CQSRVR and include in the message your stataus: MESSAGE TO: CQSRVR MESSAGE BODY: CQ AT leaving home... etc... -or- CQ PCT headed up the mountain to... etc CQSRVR GROUP STATUS: These messages will be re-directed by the CQSRVR engine to all other similar stations who have also sent their message to the same AT or PCT group on CQSRVR. You will remain logged onto CQSRVR 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 CQSRVR. You can only send one such message per 30 minutes... But 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/cqsrvr.html Ignore ECHOLINK #10 this year.... Just too much going on. 10) ECHOLINK: As an exercise in your 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 an exercise in capability than essential, since so few people know how to do this.. (we should practice!)... but this is a lower priority than everything else above. 11) 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 whether it is on 144.39 prior to the event or 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) MDMTNS-7 GDHILL-8 CAMLBK-9 HIGHPT (monitor only unless needed) SAMSPT-10 GRYLCK-11 N1NCI-12 MTWASH-13 SUGRLF-14 KATHDN-15 LOKOUT-1 Lookout montain 1 hop beyond Springer HTSVLE-2 Huntsville, 2 hops beyond Springer WPA-1 Western PA group if they join in CTLINK-1 Connecticut Group if they link up etc For brevity in messaging, feel free to abbreviate: SP,CD,RO,CR, AO,WR,MM,GD,CB,SP,GY,NH,MW,ME,KN, HV, LO, etc 12) STATUS TEXT: Keep it BRIEF. first must be your FCC call, then possibly two suggestions. 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 "QSL 123456" meaning you are seeing packets from the main digi stations 1, 2, 3 etc.... 11) MESSAGE COMMUNICATIONS: THIS IS A MESSAGE EVENT.. not an APRS tracking event. SO plan on learning to quickly and efficiently send and recieve, edit, copy and manage messages from the front panel of your APRS radio. But do NOT over-chat. You might kill the golden packet! There are several messages for this event: MESSAGE SERVER: Use your 144.39 APRS HT to maintain a message presence on normal APRS via the CQSRVR using the CQ AT or CQ PCT group as noted above. Once every half hour or so, send out a status update on this system to keep everyone informed of your status. EVENT MESSAGES: Send a SHORT message on the even channel not more than about once every 10 minutes (assuming the full 15 stations are on the channel). In this message, report your status update. EMAIL: If you have email capabilities or want to send APRS email on 144.39, send a message to the at-golden-packet @YAHOOGROUPS.COM every hour or so to keep everyone informed. THough if you do that by APRS message, just the address is 32 byutes long! *** I wonder if Lynn can make up a quick alias of just AT and PCT? SEND AS BULLETINS: Since everyone is interested in seeing all the traffic, send your general messages as BULLETINS, not station-to- station (that can not be seen by anyone else). Normal messages are only captured by addressed stations, but BULLETINS are seen by all. To send a bulletin, address any message to BLN#xxxxx where xxxxx are optional available characters you can use to indicate who it is to. For example a message specifically to GDHILL but wanted for everyone to see, send it to BLN1GD for example. Increment the digit after each new message. MESSAGE OVERFLOW! Be warned, the D7 and D700 can only hold 10 or 16 messages 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 keep PENCIL notes of messages for your event log and DELETE them when read to make sure that you always have enough room for incoming. *** MESSAGE BUG!!!! There may be some D710 radios that will ACK all incoming BULLETINS and messages to ALL. If so, replace the radio OR- get the word to all stations (VIA CQSRVR or other means) to STOP MESSAGING. 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 CQSRVR: CQ AT or CQ PCT from root station call 2) Initial coordination on ur PUBLISHED repeater for adjacent nodes 3) Monitor 445.925 (AT) simplex direct when you are in place 4) During test times only, (backup) try VOICE on the AT channel 144.34 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) This way you can message other stations in the blind on 144.39 8) You can also message stations in the blind on 144.34 AT. 9) Remember all identical root callsigns will capture a message A) but only the SSID-MATCHING station will send back an ACK B) Send group messages via CQSRVR (allowed 1 per 30 min) as needed C) Send point-to-point messages using assigned calls. D) Send EVENT messages to BLN#xxxx where xxxx can show recepient D) Keep HOP7-7,HOP7-7 msgs brief and send one less than 1 per 10 min F) Use HOP2-2 or so or 144.39 for coordination messages or others... G) Delete older messages to make sure to have room for incoming (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