K5N Private Packet Network Setup Instructions
(including a newly added link to EA6VQ's telnet client for use with ON4KST's chat telnet client!)
From the FFMA Reflector, May 5, 2012
Hello to everyone interested in the FFMA and 6M grid chasing in general. I would like to try a test of the K5N Private Packet Network. I am suggesting Sat night and Sun night at 9PM CDST (the 5th and 6th of May). That converts to 0200Z on Sun and Mon (if I got the conversion right--which I often don't). Below are the instructions needed to use the N1MM packet client. The N1MM software is free and the packet client works very well. If you know and prefer a different client, that is FB with me, but I can't help you with the setup. Please note that the K5N Private Packet Network is K5N.AB5K.NET at port 2323. It turns out that AB5K.NET at port 2323 also works FB. You might want to save the instructions below into a file on your computer for future reference.
I want everyone to know that Terry-AB5K has created this Private Packet Network just for us. I really do appreciate his work here. He is one of many that has stepped forward to solve problems that I did not know how to solve. His expertise is the packet clusters and he knows his stuff. A big THANKS to Terry.
See you tonight and tomorrow....73 Marshall K5QE
P.S. Please note my email change. I am now using k5qe@k5qe.com....please change your address books. Thanks.
Instructions for Adding and Using
the K5N Private Packet Network
The following was updated on May 14, 2012.
1) Download and Install the N1MM package. Try to run N1MM and you will get a message that you need to download and install the latest update. Follow the link and download the first one at the top of the list.
2) Download and Install the N1MM Update package. The Basic Station Data window may appear here, see 4).
3) Start N1MM. At this point you should see the Main Logging Window—the window where you enter a contact.
4) Click on Config and then on Change your Station Data. The Edit Station Data window appears. Fill in your call, name, and grid square. You can fill in the other blanks if you wish. Click OK.
5) Click on Config and then on Configure Ports, Mode Control, Audio, Other. In the lower left part of the Configurer window, you will see the Telnet Cluster window. Click on the Edit button to the right of the window. This will bring up the Change Telnet Cluster List. In the row with the tiny pencil on the left, enter K5N for the Display Name and enter K5N.AB5K.NET:2323 for the IP Address or DNS Name. Click on OK. If you don't see an empty row with the tiny pencil on the left, just click on the * on the left, that should make you an empty row to use for the K5N entry.
6) Click OK at the bottom of the Configurer screen to close it out.
7) Click on Window. Click on Packet/Telnet and the Telnet Window will appear. Be sure you have the Telnet window selected not the Packet window. In the upper right of the Telnet Window, just to the left of the Close Port button, there is a window with a drop down arrow. Click the drop down arrow, find K5N in the list, move the arrow over the K5N entry and left click. That will chose K5N as your default packet network. This choice will stay put until you change to something else.
8) The window now instructs you “To connect to Telnet, type your call and press Enter, or press the button with your call on it below.” So enter your call....for instance, I entered K5QE. You will see the welcome screen, which looks like:
To connect to Telnet, type your call and press enter, or press the button with your call on it below.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| |
| Welcome to the AB5K AR-Cluster Telnet Server |
| Located near Holland, Texas |
| |
| Running AR-Cluster Version 6 Software |
| |
| This is a special DX Cluster setup for K5N/K5QE 6-Meter DX-Expeditions. |
| All spots remain local and are not send into the DX Cluster network. |
| |
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
9) The > is the prompt, just like the DOS prompt. We are now ready to start using the cluster for passing information back and forth. The packet cluster is a very disciplined system. Only certain commands are allowed. After our testing sessions, we found that the common DX command used for posting DX stations was tedious and clumsy for use as “chat”. We found that the Announce command, which is commonly abbreviated AN or ANN is much better for chat. We also found that ALL CAPS is a LOT easier to read than small letters.
So, we might enter AN NOW CALLING CQ. ANTENNA POINTED NNE. The nice thing about the AN command is that it is free form and can be longer than 30 characters.
When you enter a post, you will see the post on black on your Telnet screen. IF that post has been accepted, you will see your post repeated in red (the format will be slightly different, but it will be obvious that it us your post). When you see the red version, you know that your post has been sent throughout our private network and that everyone currently logged in will see it. In particular, the K5N operator will see it. Whether the K5N operator actually does anything about your post is another matter....HI.
I suggest that you load and configure the N1MM software and do the configurations necessary. Load the Telnet Window and play around with this for several minutes. Make posts that you think are OK and see if you get the blue repeat of your post. If you do not, then something was wrong. You will have to figure out what you have done wrong.
This is the system that K5N will be using for “chat”. It is too bad that we cannot use the traditional reflectors, such as PingJockey and the ON4KST pages, but the data overhead for these web based products is just enormous. NEWS FLASH: Lance kindly pointed me to a Telnet Client for the ON4KST pages. It was written by EA6VQ and is available here: http://www.vhfdx.info/kstclient.html The actual download link is not obvious. If you click the word download in the second paragraph, the download will begin. The EA6VQ client for the ON4KST pages is easy to use AND it keeps the byte count down. Hence, we will try to watch both the Private Packet Cluster AND the ON4KST 50MHz Region 2 chat client. HINT: To use the ON4KST 50MHz Region 2 pages, you must already have an account there, so set that up before we go to the boonies.
It is important that everyone keep the mindless chatter to a bare minimum. If everyone posts a lot of drivel, the K5N operators would be overcome with trivia. DISCIPLINE is the name of the game here. Please use ALL CAPS and ONLY the AN command on the packet cluster. If we have a widespread opening where signals are really loud, we will know that and don't need 150 confirming posts. Mostly, we want to be able to send outgoing posts so everyone will know what we are trying to do. Clearly, we will want some incoming information too, just try to keep the posts to information that is timely and useful to the operator(s).
We will start by asking you to post us if you are hearing us or are decoding us. Posting “AN Hearing you well here from K7XX” is useless. Say “AN K5N is S7 in CN87 Bearing 320”.... that tells us what kind of signal we have and WHERE we are being heard. If you send us a bearing, be sure it is the bearing FROM us TO you. Thank you.
Good luck to everyone. We are hoping to top the 2000 QSO mark. IF we get good propagation and a bit of luck, we can do that. We do really want to work everyone that needs DL88 for the FFMA.
73 de K5N Group1
KB8U-Russ
KD5IKG-Tim
N5NU-Jason
N5YA-Bill
K5QE-Marshall
In a subsequent email...
Hello everyone....Below is what I said in my first post (see all above). I still mean that. Clearly, when we are at DL88, we will not have any idea what client you are using, so use what works for you.
I want to point out that many (most?) VHFers know very little about the HF packet cluster network. It exists and it helps HFers find other stations. That was all I knew until a month or so ago. I have watched the HF packet network for some time and I have never seen a 2M spot....and only rarely a 6M spot. I wanted to provide a simple way for people that do not know anything about the packet network system to get on our private packet network while we are in DL88. The most important thing is KISS.
N1MM is widely in use by a lot of folks, so for them, they don't have do download and install anything. Just configure the K5N private packet network and start using it. We will be using N1MM for logging while we are in DL88, so the Packet Client is there for "free" for us. It works FB and it is simple to use. The setup is not hard, but like any software, you do have to get it right. By testing now, we will let people try the private packet network out and get a bit of a feel for what is going on. There is no magic here, but we HAD to have something that did not pass huge amounts of data for every post. NOW, if someone would like to donate about $2000 for our data budget, I will go back and use PingJockey or ON4KST. Please send your check right along.....
I hope that I have not "thrown a monkey wrench" into the works here. I want everyone that is interested to have a chance to test things out....rather than tearing their hair out on the first or second day of operations. If you can get things to work using some other software, great. I will see you tonight and Sun.....
73 Marshall K5QE
Note: This page updated on May 14, 2012.
