Ran a bunch of errands in town - bank, hardware store, box store, Harbor Freight. Had dinner in town and the meeting was excellent. The Digital Group is my favorite of the four groups I meet with - people actually doing stuff and pushing the envelope.
We have been exploring APRS - Automatic Packet Reporting System using the Raspberry Pi single-board computers over the last six months or so. For the applications, we started with Dire Wolf, then Xastir running on top of Dire Wolf - from their About page:
Xastir provides mapping, tracking, messaging, weather, weather alerts, and Search & Rescue features over radio or internet and runs on a variety of platforms.
Xastir serves as a 'front-end' for Dire Wolf offering a graphical interface with mapping functions and display of position and data.
Tonight, we started working with Fldigi - Fast Light Digital Modem Application, pronounced “F L digi”, a cross-platform modem program that supports most of the peer-to-peer (live keyboard) digital modes used on the amateur radio bands. Fldigi is one member of a group of software for NBEMS or Narrow Band Emergency Messaging Software. This allows you to send error-free text messages from one station to another.
These various applications are amazing - this is coming together to be a solid and reliable emergency communications platform. Entry cost is an amateur radio license, a cheap computer (under $100) a cheap radio (under $100) and a charged car battery.
Fun time to be alive!
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