Backscatter at the HF station

The club's computer situation has been in a great deal of flux over the years, and there's no reason to think that won't change. We presently have two user machines in the front room, and a server in the back room. We have one keyboard and monitor at each operating position. This allows us to monitor the local DX clusters, use specialized computer logging software, and employ DSP filtering software that uses the computer sound card. The machines are also loaded with software that displays the current sun, moon, and even meteor shower locations for aid in propagation determination. Other software interfaces with digital oscilloscope hardware, tracks the Amateur Radio satellites, and sends Morse code for practice. Our computers are also connected to the Internet, which allows us to access immense information about Amateur Radio online.

backscatter is a 233 MHz Pentium II machine with 64MBs of RAM, 20GBs of space, a CD-ROM drive, a Creative Labs SoundBlaster 16 sound card, mouse, and keyboard. This machine is connected to two 17'' SVGA monitors - useful for watching a packet cluster or a greyline map program on one screen while doing something else on the other screen. It is underneath the HF table, and is running Windows98. It has a custom-built parallel port keying interface connected to LPT1 that is designed to work with TR Log. COM1 is connected to the Kenwood IF-232C interface for the Kenwood TS-850SAT transceiver. COM2 is connected to the AEA PK-900 multimode data controller. The computer is connected to the shack's local area network via an ISA Addtron NE2000 clone 10Mbps 10base-2 ethernet NIC. There is also a W9XT contest card installed, that appears as LPT2.

eskip is a Dell 90MHz Pentium machine with 32MBs of RAM, two hard disks with over 4GBs of space, a CD-ROM drive, a Creative Labs SoundBlaster 16 sound card, mouse, and keyboard. This machine is connected to the 17'' SVGA monitor at the VHF table. It is running Windows98. It has a custom-built interface cable connected to the sound card and the parallel port designed to work MS_DSP for high-speed CW meteor scatter work. It also has a SASI Sat Tracker connected to LPT1. COM1 is connected to the Yaesu FT-847 computer control interface. The computer is connected to the shack's local area network via an ISA Novell NE2000 10Mbps 10base-2 ethernet NIC.

n5xu.ece.utexas.edu is an AMD K7 Athlon with 128MBs of RAM, a 40GB hard disk, a CD-ROM drive, mouse, and keyboard. This machine is connected to a 15'' VGA monitor. It is running RedHat Linux 7.3. It is connected to the Aerospace Engineering department subnet via an Addtron PCI DEC Tulip chipset 10Mbps 10base-T ethernet NIC, and to the shack's local area network via an ISA Novell NE2000 10Mbps 10base-2 ethernet NIC.

n5xu.ece.utexas.edu Linux server and gateway

n5xu.ece.utexas.edu is the shack network gateway to the Internet. It is running an IP firewall and network address translation. It is also running an Apache web server, and the club's web pages are hosted there. backscatter and eskip are transparently connected to the Internet, and have the usual complement of Internet software.

For HF digital operation, the club has an AEA PK-900 multi-mode controller. It is connected to backscatter, the Yaesu FT-2600M 144 MHz radio, and the HF radio. This unit features dual simultaneous radio ports, 1200 baud VHF, and all of the popular HF modes (AMTOR, PACTOR, RTTY, ASCII, PACKET, WEFAX, and more.) It supports the TAPR modem disconnect header to allow us to connect additional modems (such as PSK modems for the PACSATS) and has a plug-in 9600 baud AFSK modem upgrade available. The PK-900 draws one full amp of 13.8VDC power which is provided by a separate power supply. The club does not have any RTTY-specific software yet, but uses a standard packet terminal program to operate the data controller. For PSK-31 operations, the sound card in backscatter is cabled directly to the line out and microphone in connections on the HF radio.

Check out UTARC VHF Digital Communications for more information about some of the club's current activities with the digital modes.