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ARES DIGITAL EXERCISE


 Frederick Amateur Radio Club's station K3ERM at the Frederick Fire Station

Check in Rolan W3FDK, Bill N3TCR? , Herb W3HCP, Jim N3HTA, Jeff KB3FIO, and Keith KB3TCB

Joe NE3R monitored the repeater and coordinated the exercise from his residence.

Eric N8AAY at Walkersville Red Cross

We had contact with:

1.  Handle Kirk KB3ONM mobile l on 147.06 MHz, FM

2.  Phil W3ICF in Monrovia on FREQ 28.120 MHz PSK31, MT63, 7.035 MHz PSK31, Olivia 8/500, mode MODEMMM

3.  Robert VA3???  in Toronto Canada on 7.040 MHz, PSK31

4.  Handle MM KG4KGL in South Carolina on 7.040 MHz, PSK31.

 

Present at the K3ERM  Frederick Amateur Radio Site:  From Left to Right, Herb W3HCP, Rolan W3FDK, Jim N3HTA and Jeff KB3FIO. (Keith KB3TCB took the picture)

The K3ERM station


VHF/UHF equipment on 2M (145.75, 147.06), ICOM IC-2720 and Signal Link interface between the IC2720 and the computer sound card.

 

Roland used the following three programs in the Exercise.

MixW

http://mixw.net/

fldigi

http://www.w1hkj.com/Fldigi.html

 

D-RATS

http://www.d-rats.com/


The following modes were used: MT63, Olivia, BPSK and D-Star.

Computer screen of MixW2
This is the screen dump for MIX-W




Screen text for the first message

The first packet message using the FLDIGI mode in the MixW program.



The MixW packet commandes
The MIX W Packet Commands

The MixW packet program TNC Commands:

Sp (send personal message)
After the body message then send/ex (Exit) to save the message
Send b to disconnect the pbbs in this case W3FDK-9
r (read) 51 if you want to read message number 51

Starting to work 10, 40 and 80 meters, using the FARC antennas. and the fldigi program.

The HF Transceiver
The HF Transceiver on 10 meters



Monitor image of Fldigi screen dump
Screen dump of Fldigi (from web), notice the black waterfall area at the bottom of the screen (with the two red lines).



A PSK31 message

Sending a PSK31 to Bernie W3CAO Thurmont, on 10 Meters (28.120)




Screen shot of Fldigi modes
Here is the top left of the fldigi program window.  Note that all available Fldigi modes are shown, and the message the software ‘thinks’ is being received. It interprets everything including the noise as characters, so it is important that the squelch be set properly.

The following are the Fldigi Modes

Hell – Field, Show, X5,X9, FSK, FSK 105, 80
MFSK – 4,8,11,16,22,31.32.64
DominoEX – EX4, EX 5, EX 8, EX 11, EX 16, EX 22
MT63 – 500, 1000,2000
Olivia – 8/250, 8/500, 16/500, 8/1000, 32/1000, custom
PSK – BPSK-31,QPSK-31,BPSK-62,QPSK-63,BPSK-125,QPSK-125,BPSK-250,QPSK-250
RTTY – 45,50,75
THOR – 4,5,8,11,16,22
Throb – 1,2,4,X-1,X-2,X-4
NBEMS modes – DominoEx 11,Domino EX 22,MFSK-16,MFSK-32,BPSK-125,BPSK-250
WWV


PSK31 Waterall display

Waterfall display at 10 m, notice the bandwidth of PSK31 cursor markers is about 80 Hz.



Waterfall while transmitting

The Waterfall display, while transmitting (no blue noise background).



Olivia wave form

The waveform of Olivia. This is sampled 12 bits at 8K hz.



MFSK16 waterfall

MFSK-16 Waterfall, Bandwidth 200Hz



MFSK16 Wave form

MFSK-16, Waveform

D-Star was the last mode for the exercise.
Digitalized voice over D-star was a cake walk, since it was supported in our Icom transceiver out of the box and did not need a computer or TNC.

Icom-2200H Transceiver

The D-STAR rig IC-2200H

DRATS Setup

DRATS Setup

Time ran out and that was enough for the day, we spent about four hours and I learned a great deal. However, as is often the case, learning a little shows just how much more there is to learn.  

You might find the following URLs helpful for using MixW.

http://navymars.org/pacific/reg10/Files/mixw_quickstart.pdf

http://k6ix.net/MixW/MixWManual.pdf

 

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