Hi folks,

I got a new laptop with Win/10 on it and, when using Focus Phone, its doing something that I've not had happen on Windows 7 or 8. 

When I plug in my USB external camera (Logitech eyeball) and open Focus Phone what happens is, Focus Phone starts up (as evidenced by the icon in the traybar appearing), but the program does not open up on the desktop (only in the systems tray bar).  I know the camera is work with Focus phone because when I cursor over the icon with my mouse in the tray bar (shown below in pic), the image from the camera appears (but in a much smaller version - which its suppose to do that).  The program itself doesn't seem to want to open up on the screen (other than in the tray bar). 

Anyone else have this problem with Focusphone.  I'd hate to use another program as I have installed on all our Mesh computers in our ARES group.  But, if I have to change to another program - I will, with some advice.

Well., after writing all this - i tried to up load the image (jpg) of my tray but this forum is giving me an error saying Warning: Failed to move file.  Unable to upload image.

Boy, i'm having a productive day....

I have a very new license, and have only been reading about HSMM, so my thoughts on this topic are very preliminary.

It seems to me that we should be thinking about part 97 versus part 15 operation, and that in particular we should have tools to rapidly switch between the two.

Part 97 operation offers greater flexibility in terms of power and frequency. You can make connections that might not otherwise be possible.

Part 15 operation offers greater flexibility in terms of the sort of traffic which can be handled. You can carry messages or permit unsupervised users.

The equipment, software, and skills needed to set up a network mostly overlap. IMHO when the desired connection can be established under part 15 rules, then it makes sense to do so. A part 15 connection could be connected to the open internet and used by non-HAM 'customers' without worrying about content.

A part 15 connection could be encrypted, whereas a part 97 connection cannot. (And while a HAM operation should not be encrypted, an _emergency response_ might need encryption, say for medical records.)

This is vaguely analogous to the rules about using the minimum power to effect the desired communication, or the requirements in the emergency operations rules permitting other rules to be broken only if no other communications method is available.

I've also been pondering the concept that if you use your call sign you _necessarily_ imply that you are operating under part 97. If you use your call sign with no qualification, then you are clearly saying 'this is a part 97 operation'. But what would happen if I used 'AF7TS/part15' to identify a node? This would be akin to someone who just upgraded appending /AE to their call sign. It removes any ambiguity caused by the use of a part 97 call, and part 15 doesn't have any particular call sign requirements.

The real question is how possible it would be to have a network that has some links operating part 97, and other links operating part 15, and automatically (and correctly) route traffic across such a network.

Thanks for considering my thoughts

73

Jon

AF7TS

Hi I’m Trevor K7FPV. We have a mesh network running in Layton, UT with around 12 nodes. We mainly setup and use the mesh for emergency communications. We have been using Team Talk running on a Raspberry Pi off my node to communicate. I’ve never liked this solution since it requires my node to be online as a single point of failure, and Team Talk is not the easiest thing to use, and does not work on mobile devices.

We tested Ham Chat, but again same problem. If that nodes goes down, your messages go with it, or you have to all login to a bunch of nodes. Great app for what it does.

I wrote a web app called meshchat that runs on the node it self. It has a modern responsive / ajax web interface. The concept is you can login to any node running meshchat and see the message database and send messages. The message database is stored in RAM and a smaller version persisted to FLASH. There is a daemon that runs all the time on the node and requests the message/user database from every node on the mesh. If it finds a new message it adds it to its own copy of the database. This way every node always has a full copy, fully distributed, fully redundant and p2p. No single point of failure or a server. It also keeps track of which users are currently logged into which node, and which node the message originated from. When you install on a new node, it will instantly get a full copy of the message database from another node. Depending on the speed and size of your mesh it can take a few seconds to a few minutes for new messages to fully propagate.

We have been running this on our mesh for a few weeks and it seems to work well but should be considered alpha software at this point. I invite any one else to try it out and submit bugs to me.
Right now the app just does text messages. I’m making some progress using webrtc to add p2p video and file transfer, but it is tricky to do without a server involved for ICE / STUN setup. Anyone who is familiar with webrtc is invited to help ;).

Right now there are some prerequisites to running this: 

* Must be installed on Ubiquiti hardware - may do linksys support at some point 

* You have to reboot your node after installing the package for the daemon to start - trying to figure out a problem with it starting after package install 

* We have tested only on 3.1.0, but it may work on other versions I don’t know 

* You must have the correct time set on your node - NTP is a great way to do this. We used the nodes times in UTC and in javascript convert it to that users timezone in the browser. May change this to use the time from the browser instead since NTP may not be available.

* You must have the wget-nossl package installed - this is because the busy box wget does not support connection timeouts and a unreliable node will stall the daemon forever. 

You can see the code here: https://github.com/tpaskett/meshchat 

You can download a wget-nossl package here (install this first): https://www.dropbox.com/s/skhmaxukad5p59y/wget-nossl_1.13.4-1_ar71xx.ipk?dl=0

You can download the package here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/4jkrntvby3sx467/meshchat_0.1_all.ipk?dl=0 

Possible features in an update: 

Auto update all nodes on the mesh after updating 1 node 
P2P file transfer 
P2P video conferencing 

Thanks to Bill N7IE and Dave KD7DHO for their work on our mesh and for testing. Feedback is welcome. 

Afterthought.

When I downloaded the ......... squashfs.trx file the download notification had changed to .......squashfx.man

Why?

Hi All.

I updated my Linksys routers from v3.0 to v3.1 today. Initially I downloaded the normal file and the patch to My Documents I then connected the mesh router to the PC to upload via the administrator tab. I got an error message saying it could not load the file (either of them).

I then connected the mesh router to my internet router and did the update as a download from the Mesh website. I used the refresh file box them chose the patch file. It worked a treat, it took longer for the box to reboot.

All my units are now up to date but my question is. Why could I not upgrade my units with the file from my PC?

73

Eddy.

I just updated all three of my routers and this is what I get when I go to mesh status. "Whoops, OLSR is not running, try again later.    I have tried serveral times tonight with no luck.  This includes pulling the plug and restarting.  Any ideas?

All,

Every quarter the Naval Post-graduate School (NPS) in Monterey holds a Joint Inter-agency Field Experiment (JIFX) in-which groups are invited to participate in a multi-day event with a focus on collaboration and experimentation. The second JIFX of 16 (16-2) is being held in Alameda, CA and is focusing on Maritime and Humanitarian interests. There's a specific RFI that I thought might be of interest to the Broadband Hamnet/HSMM-MESH community below:

b.22: Interoperable Communication Solutions in Network Denied Disaster Response Environments.

Federal disaster response agencies are seeking technologies that provide clear and reliable communications between an array of disparate organizations. Additionally, network solutions are sought to establish private networks and strong backhauls to the open internet during times when commercially provided connects have failed. These solutions may include cellular, satellite, or point-to-point RF solutions.

For more information on JIFX 16-2, please see: http://my.nps.edu/web/fx/rfi

Generally the event is very engaging and the organizers encourage collaboration and experimentation in the field. I will be there participating for my own organization, but would love to have HSMM attending and participating as well. If you're interested in participating as part of a larger HSMM group, lets continue this conversation in this thread. If you're interested in submitting your own proposal, feel free to go ahead and begin that process.

Well to me the main reason BBHN is for ham use is because the developers are hams. There are a number of other non-ham Mesh projects out there that I'll list below. As also mentioned; everyone is using a callsign on the BBHN network thusly indicating any relayed traffic over the nodes is Part 97 ok/ham oriented. I.E. emails transported over BBHN may come out on VHF (Winlink) packet nodes, or VOIP traffic out IRLP nodes etc.

Village Telco - Mesh Potato http://villagetelco.org/mesh-potato/

Byzantium - wireless mesh networking for the Zombie apocalypse http://project-byzantium.org/

Serval Mesh - Emergency Preparedness MESH project http://www.servalproject.org/

SPAN - Smart Phone Ad-hoc Network https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/spandev

Commotion Wireless - an open-source communication tool that uses mobile phones, computers, and other wireless devices to create decentralized mesh networks. https://commotionwireless.net/

Hyperboria Sites - see the list of available services. http://hyperboria.net/

Meshnet - using CJDNS - Seattle or Santa Cruz https://projectmeshnet.org/

Commotion Wireless - https://commotionwireless.net/

Quick Mesh - http://qmp.cat/Home

P.S. in the above message "3 or 5 MHz band" should read "3 or 5 GHz band" as of full dark of night my LQ drops as low as 7% so that 7-60% LQ, but it is still a link.

I have two WRT54G, v2 routers flashed to version 3.1.  I can log into setup on one but not the other.  As far as I know I used the same password on both.  I have tried many combinations of passwords without success.  Has anyone come up with a fairly simple method of resetting the password for someone not reallyl"into" Linux?  I tried the method described by ad5oo but as he described it did not work on version 2 of the router.  Thanks KR4XN

I am not a lawyer, but I have spent a lot of time carefully reading documentation and thinking over this topic. So with that, here is my carefully formulated answer:

The only time any device or person follows Part 97 rules is when they transmit or affix to and while under direct control (ie. RC aircraft) their FCC-Part 97-assigned call sign. Should you choose not to use your FCC Call Sign, then technically speaking, you are still operating under Part 15 rules.

In short, there is nothing that makes Broadband-Hamnet unique for amateur radio use only other than the fact that most users here will put their Amateur Radio Call Sign as their node name (the node name gets transmitted once every 5 minutes), and thus are expected to abide by Part 97 rules and regulations. Why is this? Anytime you identify using your FCC-assigned call sign, you are implying to the rest of the world that you and your equipment are following the rules and regulations as outlined in accordance to your license grant.

So what does this mean with respect to Broadband-Hamnet?
You and your equipment must abide by Part 97 rules and regulations as soon as you change the node name to contain your call sign. If you ever change your node name to anything else other than a call sign, then you are no longer operating under Part 97 rules and regulations, but instead fall back to the rules and regulations as specified by the type of certification of that particular equipment.

I hope this adequately and sufficiently answers your question.

This reply has been tailored to those who operate under Title 47 CFR 97. Please double-check the documentation from your governing radio agency/commission for the most up-to-date information concerning what is and is not permitted (amateur radio related or not).

Hi all,

I've been wondering about HSMM-Mesh and the point that it needs to be used only by amateurs.

The system's communication is not encrypted, and it is on the lower 6 channels of the WiFi band, running no more power typically than can be put out using a WRT54G in stock mode. It connects to the internet, runs IRC and more, all of which are pretty public.

I don't understand what makes this configuration unique for amateur radio use and exclusivity. DD-WRT also provides a mesh capability, but it has no such requirement. It even shares the frequency for AP use.

I'm starting to wonder if this net could be setup in non-urban 3rd world areas and not be subject to amateur radio regulations?

So, can anyone clarify why this is so "amateur radio" specific? 

Thanks, Don  VA7IQ / AE7UP