That's not to say I haven't been doing anything, more that the last three years looked like this;

That's three years of finishing my full time career and moving into retirement ( better stated as 'underemployment' ) and finding the time to spend on being a full time volunteer and Radio Amateur.

Some things though aged a little disgracefully and it's all technology's fault.

##AREDN networking Mikrotik hAP routers looked really cheap and provided mesh networking over short ranges up to a couple of hundred metres outdoors but having got three or four of them, the march of progress and firmware updates started to take it's toll. The limited RAM in the units was challenged by firmware demanding more and more memory to the point that links became unstable after a few hours. Add to that a change in the routing protocol being used by AREDN and my choices start to feel limited...

I could either abandon the lot and start again with fresh hardware or roll back firmware versions to something that just about works for the test bed I wanted to create bringing all the different data modes together.

For ad-hoc networks in an emergency environment, AREDN is still probably the way to go because it would 'just work', whatever firmware and routing methods were installed. That however doesn't make the system something you can use ( and do use ) every day and a system that only comes out of a box once a year isn't something you can really rely on in an emergency.

The saga here will have to continue.

##44Net networking This wasn't really on the radar three years ago but as a strategic objective it probably should have been. While AREDN relies on a method of psuedo-randomly assigning IP addresses to nodes, 44net assigns addresses in what remains of the 44.x.x.x block for amateur radio use based on a fairly strict geographical assignment basis. That should avoid emergency communications groups suffering from IP address clashes in the field but you have to do a lot more to make the networking 'work'. In steps the Mikrotik hAP lite as another cheap router which had instructions on how to do IPIP networking... but they wouldn't work as written so this went onto the back burner until underemployment happened.

That didn't totally help as Mikrotik updated the firmware for those routers too ( surprise! ) and the old instructions were updated accordingly. This isn't going anywhere fast as the new firmware may not install on the old router ( another surprise! So many in one post ). A potential way out appeared when 44net started offering tunneled connections using Wireguard through their portal but the firmware in my routers doesn't support Wireguard natively so another brick wall hit and slid down :–(

It feels like this will have to be a two pronged attack of finding the old IPIP networking instructions on archive.org and attempting a firmware upgrade on the router I was going to use for the tunneled connection. That may increase my chances of failure but if you fail fast, that's a good thing right??

##AX25 networking This may actually get somewhere, just not as I planned. There has been a little resurgence in AX25 data networking in the UK and people have really taken to the unconnected APRS mode over LoRA. Some good software has been written like Greywolf which should allow the linking of the active LoRA APRS on 70cm in my area to 2m in the hope of stirring up some activity.

Running this alongside my existing station may be a problem as another dual band antenna is needed, separate from the current main station one. That could take two forms and I am not sure which one will be most successful.

Option one is to make a Flower Pot antenna and try and hide that in the garden. This will put some separation between the AX25 and main stations but the Raspberry Pi running Greywolf really needs an internet connection so we are back to putting this on AREDN or 44net with all the problems identified above.

Option two is to use a mobile whip in the loft but that will come with compromised range due to attenuation. Being a bungalow dweller in the lowest point of the village doesn't make this any better either. I can however just sit this on the home wifi for ease of access/control.

Which way to go? Who knows :)

##NPR70 This didn't get very far at the time through the discovery ( the hard way ) that the DMR amplifiers needed to get workable ranges out of NPR70 radios needed modification to reliably transmit. These were well documented ( Google Search “npr70 dmr amplifier modification” ) if you knew the issue existed in the first place. The challenge remaining here is in sorting the IP addressing out and this kind of re-emphasised why any radio/data networking project is really more challenging from the data/protocol side as the radio paths we generally understand well.

Shortage of antennas again slows this testing down but having a stable, internal, amateur only network in the house is more of a priority.

##... and then there are the other projects... Yep, I picked up 3D printing, a desire to combine a number of radios onto a single antenna, the need to do something to reduce the RF noise level at home and volunteering for the Engineering community to fill in the spare time I thought I had.

At least I have started posting again and hopefully this doesn't turn into 'see you in another three years time' !