[pskmail] Re: server and desktop PSK
- From: John Douyere <vk2eta@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: pskmail@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 12 Mar 2010 10:09:18 +1100
Hola Karel,
Nice to see you are making progress.
I have always loaded Puppy on a separate device (SD card or USB stick)
so I can't comment on the installation in Windows.
But like you I have moved to Ubuntu for my two laptops (one as server
and one as client), and it has been very stable. So I am sure you will
find that it is a better solution for a long term application.
For testing on a single machine, there are two ways to do that. One
that I tested, one that I didn't:
1. Simpler way is to have two sound cards. The one in the machine plus
an additional one. I use a Signalink USB interface that provides an
additional sound card, but I have read many time on the internet about
good results with cheap usd sound interfaces. They sell on a well
known auction site for a few dollars.
Once you have the two sound crads going, then a simple cross
connection between the sound card speaker output of one and microphone
input of the other one will give you a reasonable testing solution.
Here is the process.
Start the first Fldigi (say that will be the server one), and select
say the computer built-in sound card. Start the Pskmail server.
Now start the second Fldigi with the following option: fldigi
--arq-server-port 7323. I will complain about the fact that the sound
card is busy, which is correct since the first Fldigi is using it.
Just ignore that and go to configuration, sound card and select the
2nd sound card. You may want to test the sound levels by TXing some
information between the two fldigi.
Then start the Fldigi client, which will complain about not binding
with the client. Just ignore that and in the preferences go to the
modem tab then change the port number from 7322 to 7323 to match the
second Fldigi port above.
You will have to save that configuration and restart the client to
make sure it is using the new port number.
And that should be it. For cpu load management you can choose to
select "slow cpu" in the Fldigi configuration since you have trwo fo
them running, plus the server and client applications.
2. Use the "Jack" sound system in Ubuntu which allows you to create
pseudo sound channels and link them by software. It is more complex
but does not require a second sound card. Not tested here.
Concerning the adaptation to conditions and usage of different
waveforms, please download the beta version of server
(pskmail_server-1.0.alpha1.tar.gz) , client (jPSKmail-0.4.9.9) and
Fldigi (3.20 beta). You will see that we have created a list of modes
in increasing levels of robustness that are selected automatically by
the server depending on the quality of the link each way.
We have also added new modes like the "robust" version of the PSK
modes so that we have a much better resistance to QRM and a better
sensitivity too.
The interesting point there is that we adapt the mode independently in
RX and TX so that each side of the link is as close as possible to
it's optimal speed. So you could very well have a server TXing in
PSK500R and RXing in MFSK32 for example which is great for mobile
conditions where you could have either QRP operations or compromise
antennas or simply because of local QRM/QRN.
For live tests, if you can't find local OMs, then I am sure if you
choose the right band (like probably 20M) you should be able to be
reachable from North American and you could ask some OMs to test your
server. Modes like MFSK16 and THOR22 and certainly the slow THOR8
provide good long distance link-ups in marginal conditions. We had
positive results with a pacific island at 2500KM from here on 20M.
Good luck,
Best 73s,
John (VK2ETA)
On Fri, Mar 12, 2010 at 6:24 AM, karel Fassotte
<karel.fassotte@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Hello all, I have been experimenting a lot with puppypskmail live CD and HD
> install.
> All now works reasonably well, but I have had some serious problems.
> Although the pc I use for the experiments complies with specifications,
> processor speed (1.7Ghz.) and Ram (1.3GB) the pc froze as soon as I tried to
> configure FLDGI. I started to dismantle the machine. It had a video card
> installed and as soon as I took out this card puppy stabilized. I also had
> some problems installing the puppy live pskmail to HD. If something goes
> wrong saving the puppy safe file, it is difficult to get rid of the files
> puppy installes to the HD. I needed Knoppix to delete the files safed in the
> HD. It is not very wise to let puppy use the part of a windows system
> partition i found out the hard way. Windows crashed afterwards, so I had to
> remove with care all safed puppy files form the HD. Finaly It worked ok.
> Conclusions using live Cd's. I think its not a very good solution if you
> want to use PSKmail as a server to use puppy pskmail server.
> I now am installing Ubuntu to see it this renders a stable solution for the
> server.
>
> By the way, can somebody explain how to check the server without having 2
> PC's, a client and the server. How can I see what the server is doing?
>
> I'am very glad with the effort being made by others, to obtain a really nice
> communication, messaging system. The way Rein painted the future of the
> system is intelligent. If the system could work with different waveforms for
> different situations and propagation conditions, also have a sort of ALE,
> evaluating the propagation that would be realy neat.
>
> I hope te get a server into place over the next weeks. I dont have many
> resources and I am working completly alone overhere in Ecuador, so no one to
> test with. It seems nobody in Latin america is doing digital, all there is
> is some RTTY and voice chat.
>
> 73
> Karel
> HC1AKP / PE2KFA
>
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