The McMinn County Amateur Radio
Club, Inc., through it's KG4FZR Club Shack located at Athens
City Hall,
has a full VHF digital station in operation 24/7.
The station operates on the following frequencies in the
following
modes:
144.390
simplex / APRS
KG4FZR-7 operates on 144.390 simplex as a full service APRS
Widen-N,
TNn-N digipeater and local Igate.
The digipeater responds to WIDEn-N. No where in this area does
an
APRS station of any kind need to have a path greater than
WIDE3-3.
Suggested paths for base stations are WIDE2-2. Suggested paths
for
mobiles are WIDE1-1,WIDE2-2 or less.
It also responds to TNn-N, or commonly called "SSn-N" where
"SS" is the
2 letter state abbreviation and the "n" is a number, and
responds to
stations using TNn-N up to TN7-7. This effectively keeps APRS
paths
within the state of Tennessee. Not all digi's respond to this.
KG4FZR-7 is also a two way APRS Internet
Gateway, or "Igate". It
"gates" all traffic it hears to the Internet, unless the
station's path
includes "RFONLY" or "NOGATE" in it. Stations with those
parameters in
their paths are not gated.
It also gates messages for "local" stations that are nearby
to KG4FZR-7
from the Internet to the RF side of APRS. The stations
considered local
are stations that have been heard by KG4FZR-7 directly, and
not through
a digipeater. KG4FZR-7 gates this type of traffic with an
"RFONLY"
path, i.e. the traffic DOES NOT go through any digipeater.
This is
similar in fashion to a "remote base" operation.
KG4FZR-7 Igate is also setup to gate "local" Internet only
APRS
stations beacons, messages, and objects from the Internet to
RF with
an "RFONLY" path, i.e. the traffic DOES NOT go through any
digipeater.
"Local" stations are those that are in the McMinn County
Tennessee
area, and are not being gated by any other Igate, to our
knowledge.
KG4FZR-7 Igate also gates weather objects and messages that
originate
from the Morristown, TN National Weather Service office, and
the Storms
Prediction Center. This traffic is gated to RF the same as
the above
traffic, so that stations participating in SKYWARN have a
added measure
of receiving this data, and seeing it visually on their
stations map.
If you are in the McMinn County
area and
are setting up an Internet
only APRS station, and would like to be added to the
KG4FZR-7 APRS Digi
/ Igate, send an email to kg4fzr@yahoo.com
and tell us your setup, call sign, name, location, and phone
number. We
will look at the situation, and if you meet the criteria for
gating, we
will add you to the allowed list in the Igate. The criteria
we use is
based on data provided by APRS server sys ops and software
authors, and
suggestions widely known across the US for such practices.
If your
station is added to the KG4FZR-7 Igate, your station will
appear to
local stations with one RF hop from KG4FZR-7, but will not
go through
any digipeaters. This is standard practice for Igates.
The APRS system runs on one radio tuned to 144.390 simplex,
a TNC-X
KISS mode TNC, and a computer running Windows XPSP2 and
UI-View32 for
APRS.
Please view our other APRS
resources at http://www.mcminnarc.com
and click on "APRS".
145.550
simplex Packet Radio
The club shack operates on 145.550 simplex in Packet radio
mode at 1200
baud.
KG4FZR-1 is a local packet mailbox. It DOES NOT allow you to
send
messages to anyone other than those who log in to KG4FZR-1
to retrive
their mail. Stations in the area who use packet, but do not
have a
personal mailbox may feel free to use the KG4FZR-1 mailbox.
NOTE: PLEASE DO NOT
SEND MESSAGES
TO KG4FZR THROUGH KG4FZR-1. USE KG4FZR-10 WL2K INSTEAD.
KG4FZR-10 is a full featured Winlink (WL2K) RMS Packet
Server. It
allows you to send a message to any address registered on
WL2K, be it
ham, MARS, or tactical, and also to internet email
addresses.
MCARC is the "alias" of the packet digipeater at the
station.
KG4FZR-7 is the call of the local packet node.
All four of the above functions are done with one radio on
145.550, a
Kantronics KPC3, and a computer running Windows XPSP2 and
the Winlink
RMS software.
All the packet functions and APRS functions use the same
computer. The
computer "boots on LAN" after power failures, and reboots
automatically
every day to clear the memory. There is a standby generator
at Athens
City Hall, and it feeds the club shack. Other that equipment
failure,
the only time the systems should be down is only a few
minutes waiting
on generator start up.
The City of Athens graciously provides us with an internet
connection,
which allows us to run the APRS Igate and the Winlink RMS
Packet Server.
The club call KG4FZR is managed by trustee Reed Clayton W4HRC.
The radios for APRS & packet are fed into a repeater
duplexer, and the on to a single antenna.
Additional info on packet mode can be found at http://www.mcminnarc.com/packet/packet.html.