pa0r

We are all ready for the reliability test. Today I have built the client into the camper, and did the first tests. This was quite satisfactory. I think we have a useable system.

Pity that the K2 died in the process... I must have put too much voltage on the PTT in. Now the front panel is dead. Not the display, I can still set the output power with the potentiometer on the front. But with the exception of the on/off switch nothing works, and the display is frozen at 10.148.

Fortunately I still have the old FT757. I had lend it to PA0IB who wanted to use it for trimming his magnetic loops, and I managed to get it back for the trip. The FT757 works fine with PSK63... Just connect the auxiliary in/output to the sound card and off she goes... I can run up to 50 Watts, and that's more than enough for this mode. The only problem is the frequency stability, the rig can QRI as much as 100 Hz during a session (only when it has to do a lot of transmitting).

The results were as expected. The distance is only 20 km and the signals on both sides very strong.
The photo shows how a PACTOR 1 station which came on frequency during a download session gave up....

Throughput is what you can expect from a 150 Hz bandwidth system. 5 cps max., 4.7 cps average, depending on whether you send a lot of capitals (Capitals have an everage Baud rate of 63, lower case make 100 Bd average).

I don't think we can expect more. I did write a HTML filter, as many emails contain html these days, with a lot of markup using lots of UNNECESSARY CAPITALS. The server now throws all HTML code away. ASCII text only for now.

Tomorrow we start our trip to Friedrichshafen, which gives us a 500 km distance to the server. Stay tuned....

Since last night we have a bi-directional, working PSKmail prototype. It consists of a server at PI4TUE (PSK63, 10.148 kHz) and a simple client, both written in PERL and based upon the ARQ protocol proposed by K9PS.

The software is modular to enable easy extension and consists of:

arq.pm
Module containing the basic arq send and receive functions for the server and the client

ARQserver.pl
Program running the ARQ Server Protocol, the Mailbox interface, the POP3 interface to the internet and the SMTP interface to the internet.
The server also has a DB module serving records for every user containing Call, POP host, POP Id, POP password, SMTP relay, mail return address and the name of the mbox file containing the downloaded mail.

ARQclient.pl
Program running the client arq protocol.

PSKmail.pl
Primitive text based mailbox client with the following functions:
Quit - Connect - Send - Newmail- Read x - Delete x - View mail - eXit
The mail client can use any editor (vi is default).

The user interface is separate to enable later substitution by a GUI (already existing for the non-arq version of the mail system).

I plan to test this setup during my next camping trip to the south of Germany (Hopefully I will be able to demonstrate the system to the visitors of the Ham Radio Show in Friedrichshafen, June 24-26th, we will be camping in the parking area of the Exhibition). You can reach our mobile home under camper@online.ms

I expect there will be bugs to be ironed out, but it looks like the system will be ready for release by the end of July!!

Todo:
Clean the code for release
Write configuration files
Write the documentation
Publish the stuff under GPL

Relax a bit

Make the system fully compliant to the proposed arq protocol:
use other port numbers (now fixed)
use the protocol byte
implement a 'connection refused' function

Implement adaptive block size control

Extend the system to cover other applications
ftp
sms, cluster output (udp)
aprs
data base access
etc...

I had promised to attend the fieldday camping, which in our club (the Eindhoven VERON div.) is more a social event than anything else. I had tried to raise som activity on hf a few years ago, but most of the time I was the only contester we ended 3rd place that time :).
So this year I decided someone else would do the organization. There was no activity in the hf contest.
PA3GFE worked in te VHF/UHF section and made some 30 contacts.

The barbequeue was nice, the company also. Summing up, it was a nice event.

A quarter of an hour before I left on friday evening I got an email from OH6KHL that tlf was not scoring correctly for the fieldday. Tlf did not double the points for portable stations. I had the source on the laptop, so I took 30 minutes to write the proper routine, upload it to CVS and include the new rules file as well.

As I have not heard anything since I guess it worked o.k.