by Kyle Krieg, AAØZ
November was a slow month for the Engineering Committee but it doesn’t mean we were not working on misc. items behind the scenes. We had a scheduled tech talk on the AREDN (Amateur Radio Emergency Data Network) but it was canceled at the last minute. We haven’t rescheduled, but plan on scheduling it after the first of the year.
A few of the committee members have been playing around with the AllStar Link network to learn the behavior of nodes and configuration settings. I talked about this amateur radio IP network in my October post and plans to use this to link SLSRC repeaters together. We will be installing a HUB node at the 146.850 cabinet that acts like a “room” or “talkgroup” on WIRES-X or DMR network, but in the club’s control on the AllStar Link network. It won’t be connected to any of the repeaters, as each repeater will need it’s own node to participate in the linked network.
Next month we have a planned workday at the 146.850 site. With the Engineering Committee starting to test the AREDN network in 2019, we will have the need for a bigger switch (16 ports vs 8 ports), which we will install, check the weatherproofing on the coax and dish point to point links, and complete some general maintenance on the cabinet.
If you have questions about the Engineering Committee or want to help volunteer, please see Kyle, AAØZ, either at the next SLSRC club meeting, or shoot me an email at engineering <at> slsrc <dot> org.