Author: Ron Senykoff

Dire Wolf APRS Software Presentation

Please join the Waltham Amateur Radio Association in welcoming John Langner WB2OSZ for a presentation on Dire Wolf, APRS Software. John is one of the main developers of Dire Wolf so we are lucky for this opportunity!

If you are not a WARA member and would like to be invited to the presentation, please fill out this form and we will email you an invite before the presentation starts. SIGN UP HERE

Agenda: 
Pre-Net: 6:00-7:00 PM 
Club Business: 7:00-7:20
Presentation: 7:20 – 8:30

In the early days of Amateur Packet Radio and APRS, it was necessary to use an expensive “Terminal Node Controller” (TNC) with specialized hardware. Those days are gone. You can now get better results, at lower cost, by connecting your radio to the “soundcard” interface of a computer and using software in place of the traditional TNC.

Dire Wolf is a software “soundcard” AX.25 packet modem/TNC and APRS encoder/decoder. It can be used stand-alone to observe APRS traffic, as a tracker, digipeater, APRStt gateway, or Internet Gateway (IGate)

We are starting this disussion on APRS as the club has identified a goal of improving our APRS installation. This will further leverage our existing investment in full time high speed internet access. The club’s current APRS setup is a digipeater with a traditional TNC. We are in a great location and can serve the APRS community well to add in iGate functionality.

Some links to look at before the meeting if interested:
About Dire Wolf: https://packet-radio.net/direwolf/
WB2OSZ’s Github: https://github.com/wb2osz/direwolf
Building an iGate: https://ww8tf.club/building-an-aprs-igate/

See Chime info below. For best experience use a computer and install the client. Dial in to the pre-net to check it out!

Hope to see you soon! BEST 73 DE KG1T

Ron Senykoff
President – Waltham Amateur Radio Association
https://walthamara.org/

Note: WARA uses Amazon Chime for online meetings. It will work with just Firefox or Chrome, but you may want to consider downloading the client to avoid issues. Also consider signing in for the “pre-net” where we start an hour early to test your A/V setup.

https://aws.amazon.com/chime/download/

Antenna Analyzer Techniques presentation now available

The October 28th meeting’s presentation is now available on YouTube.

Greg Algieri WA1JXR is the presenter. The presentation is an Introduction of Principals, Techniques, and How to Use the popular MFJ 259B Antenna Analyzer and the SDR-Kits Vector Network Analyzer. How they Work, What is inside Under the Hood, and what are some of the things you can do with them.

Note: The recording missed the first part of the discussion on the 258B. However a lot of techniques discussed with the SDR-Kits apply regardless of analyzer brand.

Presentation – Antenna Analyzer Usage

When: Wednesday October 28th @ 7:00 PM

This month we welcome Greg Algieri WA1JXR who will be presenting. The presentation will be an Introduction of Principals, Techniques, and How to Use the popular MFJ 259B Antenna Analyzer and the SDR-Kits Vector Network Analyzer. We will show How they Work, What is inside Under the Hood, and what are some of the things you can do with them.

If you are not a WARA member and would like to be invited to the presentation, please fill out this form and we will email you an invite before the presentation starts.

Sign up here ——> https://forms.gle/vpVMJdso6NNLdqBf8 <—–

Note: WARA uses Amazon Chime for online meetings. It will work with just Firefox or Chrome, but you may want to consider downloading the client to avoid issues. Also consider signing in for the “pre-net” where we start an hour early to test your A/V setup.

https://aws.amazon.com/chime/download/