FRN News

35th Dutch National Radio Flea market 2010
Live DDF plotter with Google Maps
Experiments with 70 cm gateway
FreeRadioNetwork seen on youtube
Mobile FRN Gateway visiting JOTA stations
Cup with financial boost for FreeRadioNetwork

35th Dutch National Radio Flea market 2010
On Saturday, the 13th of March 2010, the 35th annual Dutch National Radio Flea market took place in the "Autotron" in Rosmalen ('s-Hertogenbosch). FRN was also be present with even two stands. Besides the promtion of FRN the Software Designed Radio Project and the Live Doppler Viewer were also demonstrated. Dennis toke some nice video shots:
Impression Radio Flea Market Rosmalen 2010

Live DDF plotter with Google Maps

Doppler Direction Finders track HF signals using the doppler effect. This effect is the behavior of the frequency increment if trinsmitter and receiver travels towards one another and decreases if the distance increases. DDF trackers make use of 4 fixed antennas. By switching between the antennas a virtual rotating antenna is created. The signal from the fm receiver is a sinus with the same frequency as the signal that drives the antenna switches. The fase shift between these signals is the direction where the transmitting source is located. By combining the results of different trackers, a cross can be realised to obtain the location of the transmitter. The trackers need to be installed at different locations and communication to a server is needed in order to collect the data. This gives the possebility to show the results real time on a map on the Internet. A small version of the doppler viewer is displayed at the left hand side. Click on the 'large version' link to go to the screen wide version. More information on the DDF Tracker can be found at www.pe0ssb.jentronics.nl.

Experiments with 70 cm gateway
A gateway is now operational in the 70 cm band. It is online at ham.freeradionetwork.nl in room World. The gateway is in experimental stage with my 24 hours supervision in order to avoid unwanted interference. It is a remote link to PI2BRD, the 70 cm repeater in Breda, the Netherlands.
The gateway is not connected to the D-Star room, since analogue links are not allowed on the D-Star Plus software. Hopefully more gateways will follow.

See main website for information on client software.
Gateway info:
PI2BRD
Repeater output 430.3250 MHz
Repeater input 431.9250 MHz CTCSS 71.9 Hz

FreeRadioNetwork seen on youtube
Sometimes when the weather is rainy and I have nothing else to do, I search the internet for videos on FreeRadioNetwork. Always interesting seeing how people promote their server, show there gateway setup or doing range testing.
Here are some interesting links:

QSO4YOU

Frank
Audio a little to loud, hope Frank will re-do this once.

simonthewizard

nl13200

revdns2008

MPT002

ChRiStHeTuNeR1993
Don't know what he wants to do with the PTT. A button can be connected to the comm-port, but to be continued ...

Your video follows? ;)

Mobile FRN Gateway visiting JOTA stations
Every year it is a big event for scouts and radio amateurs as well. The Jamboree On the Air. For FreeRadioNetwork a nice opportunity to do something special. After some brainstorming we, Edwin (PA7FRN) and Frank, came to the plan to drive through Brabant (the south of the Netherlands) and visit some JOTA stations. We took a mobile FRN-PMR446 gateway with us, consisting of a small laptop with mobile internet, an interface and of course a legal 500mW PMR446 transceiver. A 2 meter set was on board for contacting the JOTA stations during our approach. In most cases that was very practical. We also brought some PMR446 portables with us to keep contact with FRN inside and outside the car via the mobile gateway. In this way we were able to give live reports to people on FRN about the scouting activities. At the scouting groups we experienced a good hospitality.

We visited the following stations:
PA3DCM/J sc. Sint Joris Breda
PA3AST/J sc. Haagse Beemden Breda
PA25DEW/J sc. Zevenbergen with Radio shack on a raft and a high self-made tower.
PA2CVD/J sc. Ossendrecht Ossendrecht (thanks for the delicious soup!)
PE6SBW/J Sc.Burg.Welschen Meerhoven Eindhoven
PA5BOX/J sc. Boxtel Boxtel (good organised!)
PA6JAM/J Dutch main JOTA-JOTI station Oirschot.

On our way we also had a QSO in Eindhoven with PA4ARP/J, Martin Luther King scouting in Kaatsheuvel.

For us it was good to see how the different groups had there way of organising the JOTA. A unforgettable day with a lot of fun!

Cup with financial boost for FreeRadioNetwork
10th November our German FRN friends visited us. Gunthard/ Kermit1942 and Manfred/ DAC351 came not with empty hands!. We got a nice cup. This cup is given by the Deutsche Funk-Allianz (DFA) to the FRN community. The cup was filled with 540 Euro collected by German FRN users. Frank, Rody and Edwin have plans to spend this money on FreeRadioNetwork. It was fun having our friends visiting us. For more information and pictures: www.deutsche-funk-allianz.de