Ham Radio Stuff

Call for help via ham radio

2009-07-19T13:49:00.000-07:00

During a conversation that Jim and I were having on Saturday 7/18 around 2:55 we received a "Break" as another ham asking to break into the conversation, Jim KC6YRU gave him the go ahead. Scott KE6ITF used ham radio to call for help on the 146.880 MHz repeater reporting that there was a chlid trapped by an undertow in the river near Hospital Rock in the Sequioa National Park and water was rushing over the child rendering her unable to breath. Jim a dispatcher for the Tulare County Sheriff's office jumps into gear even when he's on the road. Reeves proceeded to call 9-1-1 requesting help for the swimmer that was trapped and then lets Scott KE6ITF know that help is on the way.

In these types of incidents time is of the essence. In talking with Jim later that day he said that it was odd that when he dialed 9-1-1 the dispatcher was not able to transfer him to the park rangers that she had to transfer him to another line and then transfer him to the park rangers. It's always amazed me with all the technology available how these departments do not have the resources they need to do their jobs!

Resources

Recording of the conversation on the 146.880MHz repeater between Jim & Scott recorded on my iPhone while driving: Audio Recording

News article send to me by Jim later that evening:

July 18, 2009

Tulare teen drowns at Hospital Rock

A 14-year-old Tulare girl drowned today at Hospital Rock in Sequoia National Park, rangers said.

Officials said park rangers and a fire department crew were unable to rescue her. Witnesses said she had been underwater for seven to 10 minutes when rescuers responded a little after 3 p.m.

Officials in the park reported that divers had recovered the girl's body from the water about 5:45 p.m.

The 14-year-old was at the popular spot in the national park with family members, officials said.

Visalia Times-Delta

It's very unfortunate that we were not able to save a life this time, but at least there was some type of communications available. This just goes to prove that cell phones don't always work in every situation.

Many Thanks go out to the Tulare County Amateur Radio club for keeping the 146.880 MHz repeater operational as without this valuable resource communications are sometimes not possible.

Ted/KE6YJC

WD6SJV is still looking for a home

2009-07-18T14:29:00.000-07:00

Just an update on the WD6SJV D-Star system. We are still in the process of trying to find a home for our D-Star stack. Just as we thought we had found a home for the stack we lost it. The good news is that we have secured two more possible locations. One is already confirmed we are just holding out for the primary location which we should have some movement on this upcoming week.

I'll be updating this blog along with my KE6YJC toolbar which you can download from http://KE6YJC.OurToolbar.com/ you might install this as I seem to post quite a bit of useful d-star information in here.

Ted/KE6YJC

Crapy signal, but digital still works!

2009-07-08T11:50:00.000-07:00

This was an interesting little experiement I did this morning walking around my office. I recorded this video on my iPhone while I was having a QSO with Alan N6QOG. It even worked when the signal was gone! You will see the S meter go down to nothing as I'm moving around the office. It's not a good video. I am going to do some more simplex testing tonight to Visalia with Alan N6QOG and see if we can't put it to the test to see how much difference it really makes going digital. I'll keep you updated.

The future of ham radio

2009-07-07T08:38:00.000-07:00

Well this past weekend I got to to quite a bit of playing with D-Star. I currently own two ID-1's, two IC-2820's and a IC-92AD, I would say I have a few toys for D-Star and unfortunately there has not been too many systems in the area to play with. This past weekend we got the Internet link for the K6VIS up and running, while they are still working some of the bugs out it looks very promising.

In addition to the K6VIS project that I've been helping with the WD6SJV system as well. The WD6SJV system is just about ready to go we are just waiting for the agreement for the hilltop and we should be good to go.

More to come soon...

New Digi

2005-10-29T19:12:00.000-07:00

We have just installed a new digi for Winlink 2000 at 4,700'. This digi will allow users from the valley connect to other Paclink nodes to pull their E-Mail. Visit http://www.ke6yjc.org/winlink for more information.

Updates, Updates, Updates...

2005-09-21T18:24:00.000-07:00

Well I've spent about 4 hours updating the different parts of the website and I don't feel like I've even made a dent it in. I wonder if that is because it's all static or just that I have so much on the website? Well never the less see the list of improvments below.

Re-added the E-Mail Lists
Added pictures to KM6OR's Mini-Website
Added a Wires-II Section

More to come soon!

Where do you find the time?

2005-09-12T15:06:00.000-07:00

Well where in the heck can you find the time to dedicate to all the stuff you want to do? I know I sure can not seem to find enough time. It's been a while since my last post and I'm in the process of getting my old webserver back online, so I'm forced to use blogger.com for now until I get everything fixed and working.

VM Base Install

2002-01-01T08:02:00.000-08:00

This is the required base Install for the voicemail system. You must download this and install this first. All patches must be applied for this script to work properly.

Voicemail Base Install

2002-01-01T07:56:00.000-08:00

################################################################
# IRLP Voicemail Project
#
# By: Ted G. Freitas (KE6YJC)
# E-Mail: ke6yjc@ke6yjc.org
# Web: http://www.ke6yjc.org/
#
# IRLP Node: 8340 - Fresno, CA
#
################################################################

The following scripts are without warranty. I will take no
responsibilty for any damage caused to your system or IRLP
node.

###########
Portability
###########

A quick word on portability: I've tried to the best of my ability and means
to make this voicemail system as portable as possible. I've only tested
it under RedHat versions 7.3 and 8.0, however *ALL* testing has been on the
Intel x86 architecture.

############
Requirements
############

The only know requirements is that you have a functioning IRLP system, the
following VM scripts with the appropriate wav files. All scripts have been
written in Bournce shell so this will be needed as well.

############
Installation
############

1. copy the irlp_voicemail.tgz file to /tmp
ex: cp irlp_voicemail.tgz /tmp

2. extract files to /tmp directory
ex: tar zxvf /tmp/irlp_voicemail.tgz -C /tmp

3. run install script (must be su - repeater)
ex: /tmp/install

4. add the following lines to your custom_decode file:

if [ -f "$LOCAL"/voicemail ] ; then "$CUSTOM"/vm/`/bin/cat "$LOCAL"/voicemail` $1 ; exit 1 ; fi
if [ "$1" = "900" ] ; then "$CUSTOM"/voicemail ; exit 1 ; fi

The 1st if statement checks to see if the voicemail system is currently
activated. The next line fires off the voicemail scripts.

############################
IRLP Voicemail Configuration
############################

/conf/vm.conf

This file should be fine as it stands but you never know when you might
want to change something. The file is pretty self explanitory.

Make sure VM_ENV is set to TRUE or scripts will not function properly!
VM_ENV=TRUE

This tells the scripts where the audio files are
VMAUDIO=/home/irlp/audio/custom/vm

This is where the root folder for the users are
VMUSERDIR=/home/irlp/custom/vm/users

This is the location for the password file and node list. More things will
be added as time goes on and more scripts are implemented
VMDB=/home/irlp/custom/vm/dbase

Just like it sounds, temp area for everything the scripts do.
VMTMP=/home/irlp/custom/vm/tmp

Voicemail Scripts location
VMSCRIPT=/home/irlp/custom/vm

/dbase/password.txt

This file contains the user Callsign, UserID, and Password. The format
is pretty straight forward.

--snip--
KE6YJC 100 123
--snip--

The following snip shows my callsign as KE6YJC my UserID is 100 and my
password is 123. Each user must be on an indivigual line. You can not
run them together.

/dbase/nodefile.txt

This is for future gateway use!

/config/notify.txt

This file is used for e-mail, cell or pager notification of new voicemail
messages. The system will attempt to send an smtp message to the noticication
e-mail address. The contents of the notify.txt file will be the alert that
is sent.

##########
User Setup
##########

To setup a new user run the vm_adduser script. The formation for the script
is vm_adduser CALLSIGN PASSWORD NOTIFICATION-ADDR. This script must be
executed from the $VM_SCRIPT directory.

ex: vm_adduser ke6yjc 123 ke6yjc@ke6yjc.org

All information will be displayed back on the screen so you can email it
to the end user.

You will need to record their callsign.wav file and greeting.wav file. The
user can currently update their greeting.wav file by going to the custom
menu (option 8 from the main menu)

In the future when a user logs onto their mailbox for the first time there
will be a voicemail box setup script that will launch and setup all necessary
audio files.