Dear Members who read the Forums,

The BBHN group in Las Cruces, NM has a pretty good network coming up but are at a loss for some good services programs that will really get the interest going.  I am an old school Amateur and think a high speed packet radio type communications setup with mailboxes and messages sent over the BBHN would be useful to bind the group.  Also, thinking back to the early phone modem BBS's except instead of phone lines using the Ethernet accesses.  These were fun in that they had a email, chat Rooms, and repositories for file uploads and downloads.  But I can find nothing that even comes close to operating like these.  Most of what I did find is something that I can download but it always wants to "Phone home over the internet" and our BBHN is presently separate from the internet. 

So, Any suggestions?  I saw a program called HAMCHAT mentioned but so far have not been able to locate it on the WEB.   After operating for years on Packet Radio (and still am) at 1200 baud, My eyes would flash at doing that at a Megabit baud rate.  Talk about instant messaging...

73 Dave WA5DJJ

Its a function really of knowing what exactly you are looking for and how far you are willing to go to install it.

I've ran an XMPP/Jabber server in the past (actually i still do at my office)  With one of these on a Pi or similar you could run a fully featured Instant Messenger network that is fully self contained and isolated from the internet (though the protocol actually supports contacting other XMMP servers too, if the mesh some how linked into an area that had an XMPP server its as simple as doing someothercallsign@nodecall2.local.mesh and the server will find out how to get there.) You end up with your own Instant Messenger network (Similar to AOL/Yahoo/MSN/etc)  XMPP also supports "conferences" usually (multiple people to a room) and can support (depending on software on clients and server) support video chat as well.

IRC Chat servers are often common for running chat rooms, though there were programs called "chatterboxes" in the past or "page chats" or similar  simple perl scripts that store all the text in a file on the server and require the browser to refresh each time to get that page, but they work and do their job (I can understand the need to not install software).

You could also pair up an IRC server with a web based IRC chat client (KIWIIRC is common -- simple java script runs on basically every client device out there, the server part however will not run on a mesh node (Size and instruction set) and I don't think even works on a Pi serve, but will support pretty much anything as a client, so a small x86 pc could run it)

Going to simpler, if a BBS is what you want/need/remember/like, why not actually run a BBS?  A quick google: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_BBS_software  and just run it across in telnet or similar for clients? (note: you do have to enable the telet client on newer windows PC's but its fairly easy to do)

The mesh is a powerful network tool, but it is just that a network tool. Add to it, extend it, and make it your own.  A lot of what worked it packet may still work today, an a lot can be extended. If you could do it over packet or dialup modem it can VERY likely be done over the mesh.

You also don't need to pull in a mesh expert to make software like this run, usually you can pull in a local guy who is good with servers and they will usually understand how to setup what they need to setup and you just plug your mesh node into it next. If they question the network for their standpoint all they need to know is to think of it as "the cloud" it gets from one end to the other, that usually good enough for a server/network guy to know they can do what they want with it.

And again as always I recommend not running the software on the node if possible and let the nodes be nodes

Hi,

A few ideas for you:

• Setup an asterisk PABX server and connect SIP phones (hardware or software) Guide here
  
• Setup an FTP server so you can share files like radio manuals, howto docs etc Guide here
  
• Setup a text based packet style BBS. Some info on running FBB under Linux here You just telnet into it rather than use a radio.
• Run a web server with a content management system to run a notice board or blog
• xmmp/jabber instant messaging server.  Gives text chat, audio and video calls.  There is a Linux server program called prosody that works well.
• IP web cams
• Remote rig control
• Remote weather sensors.  I have a wrt54g with a ds1820 temperature sensor attached to the serial port.
• Streaming audio. You could take the output of the local repeater (or any received signal) and stream it over the mesh
• DX cluster
• APRS IS server/igate
• Setup a d-rats reflector. not sure how this work as I have only just started looking at it
• Not sure if an echolink server could be setup
• email server - need to be very careful with this one!

As the mesh system is a way of providing the network layer that applications run over, the options are limitless.  Anything you can do over the internet is technically possible over a BBHN mesh.  Although, some of the stuff on the internet I am lost as to why you would want to do it at all :)

Hopefully that gives you some ideas.

Jon

Dear Jon,

Thanks for the list of things and the links to the setup guides... I am working on a Linux server right now so it can be the basis for some of your suggestions.  I am so slow on Linux right now but by the time I get through this list I should be better at it.   I am trying to recruit some more Linux savvy help...

I will report back on what I have accomplished.

73 Dave WA5DJJ

Some other possible ideas.

Host an offline mirror of Wikipedia.  A full text-only dump of the English Wikipedia is about 40GB.  

Keep a blog.

Keep a map of known nodes and their approximate locations and strengths.  

Put your club's website on the meshnet.  

Go portable with a portable node with an attached camera, and stream your adventures