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FLORIDA AMATEUR DIGITAL COMMUNICAITONS ASSOCIATION FADCA FORUM EMCOMMS APPLICATIONS HAMCATION 2006 FEBRUARY 11, 2006

FADCA FORUM – HAMCATION 2006 WINLINK 2000 EMERGENCY COMMUNICATONS SUPPORT WL2K over ham radio has provided individuals and groups with messaging during times of disaster over the past five years. Many of the more than 8,400 users of the WL2K system are ham sailors at sea or in RVs traveling the world’s highways. Here are but a few examples – excerpts from messages.

FADCA FORUM – HAMCATION 2006 WINLINK 2000 EMERGENCY COMMUNICATONS SUPPORT Sent: 2/8/ :06:00 All-User Notice, February 7, 2006 This is a boat watch from French MRCC regarding this boat. The boat watch has been already forwarded to La Havana MRCC. S/V CLOE is a catamaran 32' length. Canadian flag.Registration nbr 1B 2065 One person on board: BERNARD Philippe, 72 years old, French. No information regarding communication on board, but certainly VHF. S/V CLOE is overdue from Hemingway Marina, La Havana, CUBA to Islas Mujeres,MEXICO (near Cancun). She left Hemingway Marina on January 6th Then no contact. Anyone with information of the whereabouts of S/V CLOE is asked to contact French MRCC at -

FADCA FORUM – HAMCATION 2006 WINLINK 2000 EMERGENCY COMMUNICATONS SUPPORT From: Sent: Tuesday, November 01, :37 To: Subject: F/V BALATIAN OVERDUE ON A TRIP FROM ISLA MARGARITA, VENEZUELA TO LOS ROQUES ISLANDS, Good morning Sir, This is a broadcast we are issuing for the F/V Balatian. The F/V Balatian is overdue (read below), we received reports informing that they were seen south of Curacao on Oct 29th, but so far we have not been able to confirm those reports. The 05 POB are citizens of Venezuela (no names available). Any assistance that you can give us will be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance. PO Capestany U.S. Coast Guard San Juan, PR

FADCA FORUM – HAMCATION 2006 WINLINK 2000 EMERGENCY COMMUNICATONS SUPPORT Subject: RE: S/V True Companions, north coast of Venezuela, overdue The U.S. Coast Guard Sector San Juan extends our appreciation for your efforts in locating the S/V TRUE COMPANIONS. Sincerely, LT BRIAN BETZ USCG SECTOR SAN JUAN COMMAND CENTER

FADCA FORUM – HAMCATION 2006 WINLINK 2000 EMERGENCY COMMUNICATONS SUPPORT Steve, I have a request from the Director of the National Hurricane Center to attempt additional information from reporting vessels last week during hurricane Adrian in El Salvador. I recall one station was Royce, possibly with callsign KD7SNN. Another was a YL named Leslie, I think her callsign was K7LEL. If you can verify those callsigns as possibly Winlink users (I'm sure Royce is), can you please tell me the right format for me to to them. I is (or is it org, or something else). Thanks.Mike Pilgrim, K5MP PS. There were a total of 57 vessels hunkered down together that night in a river near Bahia Del Sol. If you happen to know other callsigns that might have been in that group, please advise.

FADCA FORUM – HAMCATION 2006 WINLINK 2000 EMERGENCY COMMUNICATONS SUPPORT From: Sent: Tuesday, March 29, :26 To: Cc: Subject: RE: "Cosmic Muffin" Hello everyone and thanks for your concern. I am still at sea. Have contacted USCG thanks to chris wright. Today they dispatched a tanker alongside in route from panama to korea. CG's idea to fuel up except that they had only deseil and no gasoline. Tanker captain says that CG has dispactched a cutter "Washington" to my position and will arrive in mid morning. Still unable to contact CG via voice but can get many other helpful hams. Thanks for being there. Will update you with changes. Steve Russ,

FADCA FORUM – HAMCATION 2006 WINLINK 2000 EMERGENCY COMMUNICATONS SUPPORT Subject: CO ARES/RACES DRT back from Gulf Coast The Colorado ARES/RACES Disaster Response Team (DRT) recently returned from providing communication support on the Gulf coast. Winlink proved to be very beneficial during our operations. We were successful in getting our PTC-II Pro boxes working (amazing how easy that is when using Airmail!). Although we never really needed it in the operations we were involved in, we very much appreciate the PMBO operators waiving the maximum daily usage time for our operations Wes Wilson, KØHBZ Emergency Coordinator/RACES Officer CO ARES/RACES Disaster Response Team (DRT/D-Ø)

FADCA FORUM – HAMCATION 2006 WINLINK 2000 EMERGENCY COMMUNICATONS SUPPORT I have served on two teams as a Southern Baptist Disaster Relief Communicator in Mississippi, after Hurricane Katrina. Our Disaster Relief has units to supply Child Care, Clean-up & Recovery, Communications, Chris Trauma Intervention, and Feeding. We must be able to function in the absence of local resources. Our Communicators use a variety of modes of communications to get the message through. This year we had introduced yet another mode, Winlink The first time we used Winlink, was after a flood in Georgia. This became a real eye opener as a very valuable capability....

FADCA FORUM – HAMCATION 2006 WINLINK 2000 EMERGENCY COMMUNICATONS SUPPORT After Hurricane Katrina struck, we were mobilized to Mississippi... we set up without commercial power, telephones and very limited cell service. We were using Winlink to relay our reports and request back to our center of operations, in Georgia....Winlink became the preferred mode on both ends. This mode offered full copies of the messages at both ends with built-in error checking and time stamping. We could send the reports to a number of interested recipients as easily as we could to one. At times, we lost our SSB contact because of propagation, but with Winlink, we could easily switch to another of the many PMBOs and pass and receive our traffic. They like to say Winlink is "The Last Mile" but with Katrina it was more like "The Last Miles." This was a very large area, and HF was the only way to get through, at that time. All local repeaters had been knocked out to the weather and power outages....

FADCA FORUM – HAMCATION 2006 WINLINK 2000 EMERGENCY COMMUNICATONS SUPPORT Winlink took on a new importance, to us, as Hurricane Rita began to approach the U. S. coast. We were in Bay Saint Louis, MS and the size and path of Rita was just too close. We ask Chris Edwards, AE4XO, to keep us up to date by ing us the latest path forecast JPG’s. We, also, started requesting weather information from the Airmail catalog. We couldn’t do it all we did on our own without the great network of stations that were already in place. There are a number of full time PMBOs around the world that we can log into at any time. It would be almost impossible for a disaster to shut down more than one or two....

FADCA FORUM – HAMCATION 2006 WINLINK 2000 EMERGENCY COMMUNICATONS SUPPORT As word spread that we knew something about Rita, we became the onsite center for the latest Rita information. We were using an older borrowed laptop computer, which could not be connected to our USB printer. Since we couldn’t print out the information and post it, all information had to be passed verbally. The requests for Rita updates began to impact our normal operations. This is a problem we learned needs to address shortly. All of us, that used Winlink, were sold on its value to our Getting the message through. And, finding out what is going on around us. More than one Christmas wish lists will include a Winlink station, for our Jump-Kit. Bill Elliott, KJ4O

FADCA FORUM – HAMCATION 2006 WINLINK 2000 EMERGENCY COMMUNICATONS SUPPORT None of this could happen without the Winlink 2000 INFRASTRUCTURE which includes Three widely- separated Central Mail Servers 50 Land-based PMBOS/RMS stations 294 active Telpac Nodes, 900 registered The WL2K Development Team

WL2K INFRASTRUCTURE HIGH FREQUENCY ENTRY POINTS - WORLDWIDE -

WL2K INFRASTRUCTURE HIGH FREQUENCY ENTRY POINTS – N. AMERICA

WL2K INFRASTRUCTURE VHF TELPAC NODES - WORLDWIDE -

WL2K INFRASTRUCTURE VHF TELPAC NODES – N. AMERICA

WL2K INFRASTRUCTURE VHF TELPAC NODES – FLORIDA

WL2K INFRASTRUCTURE VHF TELPAC NODES – CENTRAL FLORIDA

WL2K INFRASTRUCTURE VHF TELPAC NODES – INFORMATION BLOCK

WL2K INFRASTRUCTURE FLORIDA LAYERED PACKET NETWORK

LANS - THE BUILDING BLOCKS OF THE FLORIDA LAYERED PACKET NETWORK The primary function of the layered packet network is to provide a local ham radio community with an interference-free Local Area Network (LAN) on VHF. This is effected by each community (i.e. county or groups of counties) being assigned a coordinated frequency. That way, digital operations may be carried out simultaneously on adjacent LANS without interference. The secondary function of the layered packet network is to provide interference-free inter-LAN communications. This is accomplished using point-to-point backbones on coordinated UHF frequencies between adjacent LANs using digital switches. A typical (digital) packet switch has three packet radio ports: a VHF LAN, and UHF backbones to each of two neighbor LANS. If every ham radio community supported a LAN and backbones to its immediate neighbor (adjacent) LANS, the network would cover vast portions of the state of Florida.

VIA AMATEUR RADIO Packet Switches (schematic) Backbone Ports User Port (LAN) Users Next series- The LANS in three counties in East Central Florida are schematic of building blocks on the Florida Layered Packet Network. Backbone Ports User Port (LAN) Users

Orlando, in Orange County, is the largest city in East Central Florida. The Orlando FPAC switch provides a Local Area Network (LAN) on that covers all of Orange and Seminole Counties. It also covers the southern portion of Volusia County and part of the northern portion of Osceola County to the south. These diagrams are schematic and are not to scale. The Orlando LAN – Keystone of the E. Central Florida network.

The switch at Daytona Beach serves Eastern Volusia County and Southern Flagler County with a LAN on However, it does not cover the Western portion of Volusia County. The Daytona Beach LAN – A building block one step closer to St. Augustine.

Adding the switch at DeLand provides a Local Area Net on to serve West Volusia and Eastern Lake Counties. Notice the overlap with the East Volusia County LAN (Daytona ), and the Orlando LAN on The W. Volusia LAN – Filling in nicely and pressing northwestward into Eastern Lake County.

The three counties, covering more than 2,300 square miles in E. Central Florida and serving more than 1.7 million people, are now interconnected for Ham Radio messaging between any participating digitial messaging stations on any of the three Local Area Networks. Here the UHF back- bone links, shown as colored lines between the switches, are added to provide LAN- to-LAN messaging throughout E. Central Florida.

Adding Telpac nodes or WL2K PMBO stations provides a bridge to Internet throughout the area. Now, from any location in the three-county area messages may flow to and from the Internet system, adding the Internet as a viable layer. TELPAC PMBO

The next step will be to locate a LAN/switch in Lake County (to the west of this schematic), and establish backbones westward. With the addition of the UHF backbone links to St. Augustine and Melbourne, the East Central Florida portion of the Florida Layered Packet network functions as a key element between Melbourne on the South and St. Augustine on the North. Melbourne St Augustine

WL2K INFRASTRUCTURE FLORIDA LAYERED PACKET NETWORK

FADCA FORUM – HAMCATION 2006 WINLINK 2000 DEMONSTRATION FRIDAY AND SATURDAY Antenna Data Interface Ham Computer VHF Radio LAN USER COMPUTER Ham radio server at Red Cross trailer near main RV gate. (N4ARC) on (Orlando LAN) b Router (2.4Ghz) 250 ft away at RV PMBO - Internet AI4KM-10 TELPAC node at Altamonte Springs EOC All three computers have access to conventional on the Internet.

FADCA FORUM – HAMCATION 2006 WINLINK 2000 EMERGENCY COMMUNICATONS SUPPORT To learn more details visit the FADCA website There you will find the following links.

FADCA FORUM – HAMCATION 2006 WINLINK 2000 EMERGENCY COMMUNICATONS SUPPORT REAL TIME STATUS OF WL2K INFRASTRUCTURE STATIONS MAIN WINLINK 2000 WEB SITE LOADING WL2K USER PROGRAMS Yahoo Groups for assistance AIRMAIL2000 USER GROUP WL2K EMCOMMS WL2K REFERENCES NOW ON ARRL WEB SITE

FLORIDA AMATEUR DIGITAL COMMUNICAITONS ASSOCIATION FADCA FORUM EMCOMMS APPLICATIONS HAMCATION 2006 FEBRUARY 11, 2006