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APRS Weather Stations
SMRA-ERN has two Davis Vantage PRO 2 weather stations which broadcast the
weather every
30 minutes on the national APRS frequency of 144.390 MHz. One on Red
Mountain in our Twin Towers site, with a call-sign of K6ERN. The other one
is located on Southern Mountain in a County radio site with a call-sign of
WA6ZSN. Also on 144.390 MHz. Both are Davis PRO 2 weather stations.
For more information go here:
http://www.davisnet.com/weather/index.asp
. If you do not have radio equipment that will receive APRS weather
DATA, then follow this link:
http://aprs.fi/ and click on K6ERN or WA6ZSN on
the map. You will also be able to see many more weather stations
throughout Southern California.
Packet Radio
SMRA-ERN has two Packet Nodes. One on Red Mountain in our Twin
Towers site, with a Node connect name of "RED". The other one
is located on South Mountain in a County radio site with a Node connect name of
"SOUTH". They are both on the Ventura County Packet frequency of 145.650
MHz. If you do not have Packet Radio equipment but want to learn more
about Packet Radio, read this to see if you might be interested in
getting into it:
Amateur radio operators began experimenting with packet radio in 1978, when - after obtaining authorization from the Canadian government - Robert Rouleau, VE2PY and The Western Quebec VHF/UHF Amateur Radio Club in Montreal, Canada began experimenting with transmitting ASCII encoded data over VHF amateur radio frequencies using homebuilt equipment.[2] In 1980, Doug Lockhart VE7APU, and the Vancouver Area Digital Communications Group (VADCG) in Vancouver, Canada began producing standardized equipment (Terminal Node Controllers) in quantity for use in amateur packet radio networks. In 2003, Rouleau was inducted into CQ Amateur Radio magazine's hall of fame for his work on the Montreal Protocol in 1978.[3]
Not long after this activity began in Canada, amateurs in the US became interested in packet radio. In 1980, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) granted authorization for U.S. amateurs to transmit ASCII codes via amateur radio.[4] The first known amateur packet radio activity in the US occurred in San Francisco during December of 1980, when a packet repeater was put into operation on 2 meters by Hank Magnuski KA6M, and the Pacific Packet Radio Society (PPRS).[5] In keeping with the dominance of DARPA and ARPANET at the time, the nascent amateur packet radio network was dubbed the AMPRNet in DARPA style. Magnuski obtained IP address allocations in the 44.0.0.0 network for amateur radio use worldwide.
Many groups of amateur radio operators interested in packet radio soon formed throughout the country including the Pacific Packet Radio Society (PPRS) in California, the Tucson Amateur Packet Radio Corporation (TAPR) in Arizona and the Amateur Radio Research and Development Corporation (AMRAD) in Washington, D.C.[6]
By 1983, TAPR was offering the first TNC available in kit form. Packet radio started becoming more and more popular across North America and by 1984 the first packet based bulletin board systems began to appear. Packet radio proved its value for emergency operations following the crash of an Aeromexico airliner in a neighborhood in Cerritos, California Labor Day weekend, 1986. Volunteers linked several key sites to pass text traffic via packet radio which kept voice frequencies clear.
For an objective description of early developments in amateur packet radio, refer to the article "Packet Radio in the Amateur Service".[7]
The most common use of packet radio today is in amateur radio, to construct wireless computer networks. Its name is a reference to the use of packet switching between network nodes. Packet radio networks use the AX.25 data link layer protocol, derived from the X.25 protocol suite and adapted for amateur radio use.
