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FADCA FORUM

EMCOMMS APPLICATIONS

HAMCATION 2006FEBRUARY 11, 2006

FADCA FORUM – HAMCATION 2006WINLINK 2000 EMERGENCY COMMUNICATONS SUPPORT

WL2K E-mail over ham radio has provided individuals and groups with messaging during times of disaster over the past five years.

Many of the more than 8,400 users of the WL2K system are ham sailors at sea or in RVs traveling the world’s highways.

Here are but a few examples – excerpts from e-mail messages.


Sent: 2/8/2006 01:06:00All-User Notice, February 7, 2006

This is a boat watch from French MRCC regarding this boat.The boat watch has been already forwarded to La Havana MRCC. S/V CLOE is a catamaran 32' length. Canadian flag.Registration nbr 1B 2065 One person on board: BERNARD Philippe, 72 years old, French. No information regarding communication on board, but certainly VHF. S/V CLOE is overdue from Hemingway Marina, La Havana, CUBA to Islas Mujeres,MEXICO (near Cancun). She left Hemingway Marina on January 6th 2006. Then no contact. Anyone with information of the whereabouts of S/V CLOE is asked to contact French MRCC at [email protected]

mailto:[email protected]


From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Tuesday, November 01, 2005 04:37To: '[email protected]'Subject: F/V BALATIAN OVERDUE ON A TRIP FROM ISLA MARGARITA, VENEZUELA TO LOS ROQUES ISLANDS, Good morning Sir, This is a broadcast we are issuing for the F/V Balatian. The F/V Balatian is overdue (read below), we received reports informing that they were seen south of Curacao on Oct 29th, but so far we have not been able to confirm those reports. The 05 POB are citizens of Venezuela (no names available). Any assistance that you can give us will be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.PO Capestany U.S. Coast Guard San Juan, PR 787-289-2041 [email protected].


Subject: RE: S/V True Companions, north coast of Venezuela, overdue

The U.S. Coast Guard Sector San Juan extends our appreciation for your efforts in locating the S/V TRUE COMPANIONS.

Sincerely,LT BRIAN BETZUSCG SECTOR SAN JUANCOMMAND CENTER


Steve, I have a request from the Director of the National Hurricane Center to attempt additional information from reporting vessels last week during hurricane Adrian in El Salvador. I recall one station was Royce, possibly with callsign KD7SNN. Another was a YL named Leslie, I think her callsign was K7LEL. If you can verify those callsigns as possibly Winlink users (I'm sure Royce is), can you please tell me the right format for me to e-mail to them. I is [email protected] (or is it org, or something else).

Thanks.Mike Pilgrim, K5MP

PS. There were a total of 57 vessels hunkered down together that night in a river near Bahia Del Sol. If you happen to know other callsigns that might have been in that group, please advise.


From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Tuesday, March 29, 2005 00:26To: [email protected]: [email protected]; [email protected]: RE: "Cosmic Muffin"

Hello everyone and thanks for your concern. I am still at sea. Have contacted USCG thanks to chris wright. Today they dispatched a tanker alongside in route from panama to korea. CG's idea to fuel up except that they had only deseil and no gasoline. Tanker captain says that CG has dispactched a cutter "Washington" to my position and will arrive in mid morning. Still unable to contact CG via voice but can get many other helpful hams. Thanks for being there.

Will update you with changes.Steve Russ, Captain






Subject: CO ARES/RACES DRT back from Gulf Coast

The Colorado ARES/RACES Disaster Response Team (DRT) recently returned from providing communication support on the Gulf coast. Winlink proved to be very beneficial during our operations. We were successful in getting our PTC-II Pro boxes working (amazing how easy that is when using Airmail!).

Although we never really needed it in the operations we were involved in, we very much appreciate the PMBO operators waiving the maximum daily usage time for our operations. . . .

73Wes Wilson, KØHBZEmergency Coordinator/RACES OfficerCO ARES/RACES Disaster Response Team (DRT/D-Ø)www.codrt.org


I have served on two teams as a Southern Baptist Disaster Relief Communicator in Mississippi, after Hurricane Katrina. Our Disaster Relief has units to supply Child Care, Clean-up & Recovery, Communications, Chris Trauma Intervention, and Feeding. We must be able to function in the absence of local resources.

Our Communicators use a variety of modes of communications to get the message through. This year we had introduced yet another mode, Winlink 2000. . . . The first time we used Winlink, was after a flood in Georgia. This became a real eye opener as a very valuable capability.

. . .


After Hurricane Katrina struck, we were mobilized to Mississippi. . . we set up without commercial power, telephones and very limited cell service. We were using Winlink to relay our reports and request back to our center of operations, in Georgia. . . .Winlink became the preferred mode on both ends. This mode offered full copies of the messages at both ends with built-in error checking and time stamping. We could send the reports to a number of interested recipients as easily as we could to one. At times, we lost our SSB contact because of propagation, but with Winlink, we could easily switch to another of the many PMBOs and pass and receive our traffic. They like to say Winlink is "The Last Mile" but with Katrina it was more like "The Last Miles." This was a very large area, and HF was the only way to get through, at that time. All local repeaters had been knocked out to the weather and power outages.. . .


Winlink took on a new importance, to us, as Hurricane Rita began to approach the U. S. coast. We were in Bay Saint Louis, MS and the size and path of Rita was just too close. We ask Chris Edwards, AE4XO, to keep us up to date by e-mailing us the latest path forecast JPG’s. We, also, started requesting weather information from the Airmail catalog.

We couldn’t do it all we did on our own without the great network of stations that were already in place. There are a number of full time PMBOs around the world that we can log into at any time. It would be almost impossible for a disaster to shut down more than one or two.. . .


As word spread that we knew something about Rita, we became the onsite center for the latest Rita information. We were using an older borrowed laptop computer, which could not be connected to our USB printer. Since we couldn’t print out the information and post it, all information had to be passed verbally. The requests for Rita updates began to impact our normal operations. This is a problem we learned needs to address shortly.

All of us, that used Winlink, were sold on its value to our Getting the message through. And, finding out what is going on around us. More than one Christmas wish lists will include a Winlink station, for our Jump-Kit.

Bill Elliott, KJ4O


None of this could happen without the

Winlink 2000 INFRASTRUCTURE which includes

Three widely- separated Central Mail Servers

50 Land-based PMBOS/RMS stations

294 active Telpac Nodes, 900 registered

The WL2K Development Team

WL2K INFRASTRUCTURE

HIGH FREQUENCY ENTRY POINTS - WORLDWIDE-

WL2K INFRASTRUCTURE

HIGH FREQUENCY ENTRY POINTS – N. AMERICA

WL2K INFRASTRUCTURE

VHF TELPAC NODES - WORLDWIDE-



WL2K INFRASTRUCTURE

VHF TELPAC NODES – N. AMERICA

WL2K INFRASTRUCTURE

VHF TELPAC NODES – FLORIDA

WL2K INFRASTRUCTURE

VHF TELPAC NODES – CENTRAL FLORIDA

WL2K INFRASTRUCTURE

VHF TELPAC NODES – INFORMATION BLOCK

WL2K INFRASTRUCTURE

FLORIDA LAYERED PACKET NETWORK

LANS - THE BUILDING BLOCKS OF

THE FLORIDA LAYERED PACKET NETWORK • The primary function of the layered packet network is to provide a local ham

radio community with an interference-free Local Area Network (LAN) on VHF. This is effected by each community (i.e. county or groups of counties) being assigned a coordinated frequency. That way, digital operations may be carried out simultaneously on adjacent LANS without interference.

• The secondary function of the layered packet network is to provide interference-free inter-LAN communications. This is accomplished using point-to-point backbones on coordinated UHF frequencies between adjacent LANs using digital switches.

• A typical (digital) packet switch has three packet radio ports: a VHF LAN, and UHF backbones to each of two neighbor LANS.

• If every ham radio community supported a LAN and backbones to its immediate neighbor (adjacent) LANS, the network would cover vast portions of the state of Florida.

E-MAIL VIA AMATEUR RADIOPacket Switches

(schematic)

Backbone Ports

User Port (LAN)

Users

• Next series- The LANS in three counties in East Central Florida are schematic of building blocks on the Florida Layered Packet Network.

Backbone Ports

User Port (LAN)

Users

Orlando, in Orange County, is the largest city in East Central Florida. The Orlando FPAC switch provides a Local Area Network (LAN) on 145.07 that covers all of Orange and Seminole Counties. It also covers the southern portion of Volusia County and part of the northern portion of Osceola County to the south.

Orlando

Daytona

Deltona EOC

Seminole EOC

Orange County EOC

FLAGLER COUNTY

VOLUSIA COUNTY

SEMINOLE COUNTY

ORANGE COUNTY

145.07

DeLand

These diagrams are schematic and are not to scale.

The Orlando LAN – Keystone of the E. Central Florida network.

Orlando

Volusia EOC Daytona

Deltona EOC

Seminole EOC

Orange County EOC

FLAGLER COUNTY

VOLUSIA COUNTY

SEMINOLE COUNTY

ORANGE COUNTY

145.05

145.07

DeLand

The switch at Daytona Beach serves Eastern Volusia County and Southern Flagler County with a LAN on 145.05. However, it does not cover the Western portion of Volusia County.

The Daytona Beach LAN – A building block one step closer to St. Augustine.

Orlando

Volusia EOC Daytona

Deltona EOC

Seminole EOC

Orange County EOC

FLAGLER COUNTY

VOLUSIA COUNTY

SEMINOLE COUNTY

ORANGE COUNTY

LA

KE

CO

UN

TY

144.91

145.05

145.07

DeLand

DeLand EOC

DeBary EOC

Adding the switch at DeLand provides a Local Area Net on 144.91 to serve West Volusia and Eastern Lake Counties. Notice the overlap with the East Volusia County LAN (Daytona 145.05), and the Orlando LAN on 145.07.

The W. Volusia LAN – Filling in nicely and pressing northwestward into Eastern Lake County.

The three counties, covering more than 2,300 square miles in E. Central Florida and serving more than 1.7 million people, are now interconnected for Ham Radio E-Mail messaging between any participating digitial messaging stations on any of the three Local Area Networks.

Orlando

Volusia EOC Daytona

Deltona EOC

Seminole EOC

Orange County EOC

FLAGLER COUNTY

VOLUSIA COUNTY

SEMINOLE COUNTY

ORANGE COUNTY

LA

KE

CO

UN

TY

144.91

145.05

145.07

DeLand

DeLand EOC

DeBary EOC

Here the UHF back-bone links, shown as colored lines between the switches, are added to provide LAN-to-LAN messaging throughout E. Central Florida.

Orlando

Volusia EOC Daytona

Deltona EOC

Seminole EOC

Orange County EOC

FLAGLER COUNTY

VOLUSIA COUNTY

SEMINOLE COUNTY

ORANGE COUNTY

LA

KE

CO

UN

TY

144.91

145.05

145.07

DeLand

DeLand EOC

DeBary EOC

Adding Telpac nodes or WL2K PMBO stations provides a bridge to Internet E-mail throughout the area.

Now, from any location in the three-county area e-mail messages may flow to and from the Internet E-mail system, adding the Internet as a viable layer.

TELPAC

TELPAC

PMBO

PMBO

Orlando

Volusia EOC Daytona

Deltona EOC

Seminole EOC

Orange County EOC

FLAGLER COUNTY

VOLUSIA COUNTY

SEMINOLE COUNTY

ORANGE COUNTY

LA

KE

CO

UN

TY

144.91

145.05

145.07

DeLand

DeLand EOC

DeBary EOCPMBO

TELPAC

TELPAC

The next step will be to locate a LAN/switch in Lake County (to the west of this schematic), and establish backbones westward.

With the addition of the UHF backbone links to St. Augustine and Melbourne, the East Central Florida portion of the Florida Layered Packet network functions as a key element between Melbourne on the South and St. Augustine on the North.

Melbourne

St Augustine

WL2K INFRASTRUCTURE

FLORIDA LAYERED PACKET NETWORK

FADCA FORUM – HAMCATION 2006

WINLINK 2000 DEMONSTRATION FRIDAY AND SATURDAY

Antenna

Data Interface

Ham Computer

VHF Radio

LAN

USER COMPUTERUSER COMPUTER

Ham radio e-mail server at Red Cross trailer near main RV gate. (N4ARC) on 145.07 (Orlando LAN)

802.11b Router (2.4Ghz) 250 ft away at RV

PMBO - Internet

AI4KM-10 TELPAC node at Altamonte Springs EOC

All three computers have access to conventional e-mail on the Internet.


To learn more details visit the FADCA website

www.fadca.org

There you will find the following links.


REAL TIME STATUS OF WL2K INFRASTRUCTURE STATIONS

http://www.winlink.org/status/PMBOStatus.aspx

MAIN WINLINK 2000 WEB SITE www.winlink.org

LOADING WL2K USER PROGRAMShttp://groups.yahoo.com/group/LOADING_WL2K_USER_PROGRAMS/

Yahoo Groups for assistance

AIRMAIL2000 USER GROUP http://groups.yahoo.com/group/airmail2000/

WL2K EMCOMMS http://groups.yahoo.com/group/wl2kemcomm//

WL2K REFERENCES NOW ON ARRL WEB SITE http://www.arrl.org/tis/info/winlink.html

http://www.winlink.org/status/PMBOStatus.aspx

http://www.winlink.org/

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/airmail2000/

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/wl2kemcomm/

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/airmail2000/


FADCA FORUM

EMCOMMS APPLICATIONS

HAMCATION 2006FEBRUARY 11, 2006

florida amateur digital communicaitons association take your time with each slide – then click...

Documents

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