Engaging West Seattle MESH Networking Community

AREDN Documentation WikiPDF
Release 3.22.1.0  (as of May 10, 2022)
AREDN® Network Beginner’s Guide – for the Absolute Newbie
PDF Version 19 (as of May 10, 2022)


AREDNMESH.ORG: GETTING STARTED GUIDE

AREDN® Network Beginner’s Guide – for the Absolute Newbie
PDF Version 19 (as of May 10, 2022)

AREDN® Overview

The AREDN® acronym stands for “Amateur Radio Emergency Data Network” and it provides a way for Amateur Radio operators to create high-speed ad hoc Data Networks for use in Emergency and service-oriented communications.

For many years amateur radio operators and their served agencies have relied on voice transmissions for emergency or event communications. A typical message-passing scenario involved conveying the message to a radio operator who would write or type it onto a standard ICS-213 form. The message would then be relayed by radio to another operator who would write or type it on another ICS-213 form at the receiving end. The form would typically be hand-delivered to the recipient who would read and sign the form. Any acknowledgement or reply would then be handled through the same process from the receiving end back to the originator.

This tried-and-true scenario has worked well, and it continues to work for handling much emergency and event traffic. Today, however, digital transmission is more commonly used instead of traditional methods and procedures. The hardcopy ICS-213 form is giving way to the Winlink electronic form, with messages being passed using digital technologies such as AX.25 packet, HF Pactor, Fldigi, and others.

Our Mission: The primary goal of the AREDN® project is to empower licensed amateur radio operators to quickly and easily deploy high-speed data networks when and where they are needed.

In today’s high-tech society people have become accustomed to different ways of handling their communication needs. The preferred methods involve short messaging and keyboard-to-keyboard communication, along with audio-video communication using Voice over IP (VoIP) and streaming technologies.

The amateur radio community is able to meet these high-bandwidth digital communication requirements by using FCC Part 97 amateur radio frequency bands to send digital data between devices which are linked with each other to form a self-healing, fault-tolerant data network. Some have described this as an amateur radio version of the Internet. Although it is not intended for connecting people to the Internet, an AREDN® mesh network will provide typical Internet or intranet-type applications to people who need to communicate across a wide area during an emergency or community event.

An AREDN® network is able to serve as the transport mechanism for the preferred applications people rely upon to communicate with each other in the normal course of their business and social interactions, including email, chat, phone service, document sharing, video conferencing, and many other useful programs. Depending on the characteristics of the AREDN® implementation, this digital data network can operate at near-Internet speeds with many miles between network nodes.

The primary goal of the AREDN® project is to empower licensed amateur radio operators to quickly and easily deploy high-speed data networks when and where they might be needed, as a service both to the hobby and the community. This is especially important in cases when traditional “utility” services (electricity, phone lines, or Internet services) become unavailable. In those cases an off-grid amateur radio emergency data network may be a lifeline for communities impacted by a local disaster.

Next: Spreadsheet Help

Instructions on flashing TP-Link
PDF Source File

 

Next: MeshChat

Overview of spreadsheet on Google Drive: "WSARC Mesh Network"

When a club member joins the MESH Group, s/he is listed on sheets Participants and Contact Matrix in Callsign order. An email invitation is sent to the new member with edit permission.
 
Example invitation:

You have edit permission for the WSARC Mesh Network Spreadsheet.
You have a line entry on Participants and Contact Matrix sheets.
Add your details. When you enter your QTH Grid Square, I will add your location to Gmap.  
Gmap link: https://tinyurl.com/WSARC-Mesh-Gmap-View  (Gmap links are on the Spreadsheets.)
-- John KI7YRA

When a member adds their QTH Grid Square to the spreadsheet, their coordinates are added to the Gmap

 
 

3 GOOGLE SHEETS

Use Spreadsheet Comments and Notes as needed:     Right click a cell. A menu list will appear.   Scroll down to Comments or Insert note: click the one you want.   Add a Comment for suggesting changes. It will be added to the comments section for review. This avoids email traffic.   Insert note if you are adding additional information that can't (or shouldn't) fit in the cell. Use chatview historycomments, and present as needed. (I add new users with Share.) 1. Participants sheet:    Admin will make the first entry for you.    Add your QTH and equipment details to this sheet.

WSARC Mesh Network - Google Sheets - 1. Participants

 
2. Contact Matrix sheet: 
    Admin will make the first entry for you. When you make 1-Hop contacts, enter them on this sheet. See the Legend at the bottom of column A-B for contact coding instructions.
 

WSARC Mesh Network - Google Sheets - 2. Contact Matrix

 
3. Resources sheet: 
   Use this to discover or to research various resources discussed in the MESH Group.
 

WSARC Mesh Network - Google Sheets - 3. Resources

 

Next: Flashing TP-Link

How to Edit the Default MeshChat Service Name to MeshChat-W7AW

PDF Source File

 

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