I'm working on a 4 computer network for Field Day.
I've got some questions that I can't figure out from
the manual and searching the online archives.
During FD, I'd like for all the operators to be able
to gab with each other. The only way that a station
is identified, according to my experimentation, is that
a message "20: hello there" shows up, which means it's
from the 20M station. What if 2 stations are on 20M,
like the CW and the SSB stations?
I've uniquely identified each computer with the letters:
COMPUTER ID = C (for CW station)
COMPUTER ID = S (for SSB station)
COMPUTER ID = D (for digital modes station)
COMPUTER ID = N (for Novice station)
However, this does not show up in the gab message.
Each letter does show up ok as a QSO suffix in the log.
On page 49 of the manual, it speaks of a command called
MULTI INFO MESSAGE, which you can put either/or into it:
- a $ that shows CQ frequency
- a % that shows your rate
I have set either of these in LOGCFG.DAT without an error:
MULTI INFO MESSAGE = $
MULTI INFO MESSAGE = %
but it doesn't seem to do anything.
This command isn't documented in Appendix A.
Admittedly, I'm running each of the computers standalone,
with pins 2 and 3 shorted so that TR LOOPBACK works,
and it fakes TR into thinking that the network is up.
Speaking of network, it looks like the easy way to network
a group of computers is to wire up a central box that has
has a single cable to each computer, and each cable
contains 2 wires for TX and RX data, plus ground.
This would logically be wired per the diagram on page 48.
My thinking is that this can easily be done off-the-shelf
with phone cord extensions that run from each station to
the central box, which uses RJ-11 jacks, all wired together
in a loop. The computer end would be a DB-25 adapter to
RJ-11, wired appropriately. The central box would be
composed of 4 RJ-11 jacks, wired as loops per the manual.
I would wire some "jumper" RJ-11's, which would keep the
loop intact if I had to pull a computer offline.
Has anyone done this, and made it work during FD
or otherwise ok? This wouldn't be shielded cable,
but 2 of the 4 phone wires would be grounded, and 2 used for
signals. Any other ideas that would work?
Finally, has anyone created a simple FD cheat-sheet that
new operators could use as reference? I'm busy
documenting one, and would be happy to share with others.
Only catch is you have to give me ideas in return :-)
Tyler N4TY
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