Monday, September 30, 2019

Rocklin / Lincoln CA Police and Fire Scanner

If you enjoy listening in to the local police and fire departments, please check out my live scanner feed.  Listen online at https://www.broadcastify.com/listen/feed/28289.  This provides audio for the Rocklin and Lincoln CA police and fire departments, which operate VHF repeaters. The frequencies in rotation are below:

Rocklin Police 156.030 MHz
Rocklin Fire 154.145 MHz
Lincoln Police 156.090 MHz
Lincoln Fire 151.010 MHz

The scanner hardware is a Radio Shack Pro2096 trunking scanner.  She's old but still works really well.  Radio Shack knew how to make radios (RIP)!  The scanner audio is fed into the internal sound card on an HP laptop running Windows 7.  Audio is encoded and sent to Broadcastify using Proscan's RadioFeed 4.5 software.

I strive to provide a quality stream with high uptime and good audio.  If you hear any issues such as open squelch, excessive static/noise/hum, or other problems that are more than intermittent (lasting for more than 24 hours), please contact me using the Broadcastify Report a Problem link.  

Thank you for listening!  I hope you enjoy the service and that you'll share it with others that may also find it fun to listen to the chatter of local PD/FD activity.

Thursday, July 6, 2017

Updating APRS with an Allstar Node

I had been reading that the Allstar system can update the aprs.fi site with location and station information for the node, but after searching around the net for a while it was not terribly obvious how to get this to work.  Hopefully this post will simplify the process for you.



The first thing to do is go into the asterisk folder on your Allstar server as root:  cd /etc/asterisk

You'll need to edit the gps.conf file to add the appropriate information for the APRS server.  You can use nano gps.conf to open the Linux text editor.

Below is the default gps.conf file.  Edit the yellow highlighted areas to reflect your APRS, Allstar, location, and antenna information.

; Configuration for app_gps
;
[general]

call = w6abc-1                  ; callsign (including SSID) for APRS purposes
password = 12345                ; Password for APRS-IS server for above callsign
comment = AllStar Node 1999     ; Text to be displayed associated with this station
server = rotate.aprs2.net       ; APRS-IS server to report information to
port = 14580                    ; port on server to send data
interval = 600                  ; Beacon interval in seconds
icon = r                        ; A CAR (default)   Icon do be displayed for station on APRS display (see below)
comport = /dev/ttyS0            ; Serial port for GPS receiver (specify this only if using GPS receiver)
baudrate = 4800                 ; Baud rate for GPS receiver (specify this only if using GPS receiver)
;debug = y                      ; set this for debug output
freq=145.000                    ; Display Frequency of station
tone=100.0                      ; CTCSS tone of station (0.0 for none)
lat=12.3456                     ; Fixed (default) latitude in decimal degrees
lon=-123.4567                   ; Fixed (default) longitude in decimal degrees
elev=123.4                      ; Elevation of Antenna in Meters (*NOT* HAAT)
power=1                         ; Power level (see below)
height=2                        ; Antenna Height in HAAT (see below)
gain=3                          ; Antenna Gain (see below)
dir=0                           ; Antenna Direction (see below)

Things to note:

  • If you do not have a GPS card on your Allstar PC, comment out (semicolon at the start of the line) the two lines referencing comport and baudrate.
  • You do not need to change the server, port, interval, icon, or debug settings as they work fine by default.
  • Frequency and Tone appear to only be useful when also updating Echolink, as they do not translate to info I can find on aprs.fi.
The power, height, gain, and direction settings are set using the numbers from the table below:

DIGITS   0  1  2   3   4   5   6    7    8    9
-------------------------------------------------------------------
POWER    0, 1, 4,  9, 16, 25, 36,  49,  64,  81  watts  SQR(P)
HEIGHT  10,20,40, 80,160,320,640,1280,2560,5120  feet   LOG2(H/10)
GAIN     0, 1, 2,  3,  4,  5,  6,   7,   8,   9  dB
DIR   omni,45,90,135,180,225,270, 315, 360,   .  deg    (D/45)


Once you've updated all the information needed, Ctrl-x to close and save this file.

In the same /etc/asterisk directory, type nano modules.conf

Scroll down 59 lines until you find:
noload => app_gps.so ; GPS interface module  

Then simply delete the letters "no" so it looks like:
load => app_gps.so ; GPS interface module

Ctrl-x to save and exit.

Finally, restart asterisk to load the updated settings into apt_rpt.  The easiest way to do this is by typing service asterisk restart

Check the aprs.fi website in a few minutes to see if your Allstar node is beaconing to their server.  If not, double-check your callsign and APRS password, and try restarting asterisk one more time.

A portion of the information above was captured from http://ohnosec.org/drupal/node/179

Good luck and 73!





Monday, July 3, 2017

Allstar Node Coverage Map

Thanks to the VE2DBE Radio Mobile site I was able to create a predicted coverage map for the N6JER Allstar node.

Details:

  • 442.950 Simplex PL 141.3.  
  • 5W transmit power into a Diamond X300 2m/440 antenna at approximately 8m elevation.  
  • Receive is assumed as a mobile radio with 2dB gain antenna at 2m elevation, 40% signal reliability.
  • Green is solid coverage / Yellow is marginal.


N6JER Allstar Node Predicted Coverage 442.950 MHz

Sunday, July 2, 2017

Allstar Link Online

Welcome!

The N6JER Allstar node is up!  Thanks to Skyler KD0WHB and Jack KE0VH for their help with time, experience and equipment, node 45844 is online.

N6JER, #45844, is a low level simplex node running 5w into a 7dB antenna from west Rocklin on 442.950 PL 141.3.  Coverage extends to most of Rocklin (except eastern areas in the shadow along Rocklin Rd, etc.) as well as north Roseville.  This node is using the KI6FEO repeater output frequency with permission.

The node is currently linked full-time to the KD0WHB hub (46079), which is tied to the W0GV repeater (448.975 / node 42845) in Denver CO, as well as the KE0VH simplex node (445.900) in Lakewood CO.  


Node status and current connections can be found in real time at: http://stats.allstarlink.org/nodeinfo.cgi?node=45844



More information about the Allstar internet linking system can be found at: https://allstarlink.org/