Digital modes, emerging tech & emergency communications — Montgomery County PA
Posts
Welcome to the WB3CQK blog
What this blog is, what I'll be writing about, and why digital modes and emergency communications are getting most of the airtime here.
Why FT8 changed how I think about digital modes
What makes FT8 different from older digital modes like PSK31 and RTTY, and why it's become the default for weak-signal HF work.
AREDN moves from OLSR to Babel — what it means for the five-county mesh
AREDN's 2025 transition from the OLSR routing protocol to Babel is the biggest change to the network in years — and it matters for how the JFMDNA mesh grows.
JS8Call: keyboard-to-keyboard messaging built on FT8
FT8's modem is great for contacts, but JS8Call adds free-text messaging, relay, and store-and-forward — which matters a lot for emergency traffic.
Winlink: radio email and formal message handling
How Winlink moves email and formal traffic over HF and VHF/UHF radio links when the internet is down, and what a real activation actually looks like.
What you can actually run on an AREDN mesh node
AREDN is sold as "IP over amateur radio" — but what does that mean in practice? A rundown of the services worth deploying on a mesh during an EmComm activation.
APRS is more than position tracking
APRS gets reduced to 'that thing that shows your car on a map,' but the underlying packet network carries messaging, weather telemetry, and net check-ins too.
JFMDNA and the five-county AREDN mesh buildout
The Jim Fisher Memorial Digital Network Association is building out a regional AREDN mesh network centered on Montgomery County — here's what they're doing and why it matters for EmComm.
Where Meshtastic fits for hams (and where it doesn’t)
Meshtastic is cheap, easy, and increasingly popular — but it's not amateur radio by default, and knowing the distinction matters before you build it into an EmComm plan.
Getting started with RTL-SDR: a $30 way into software-defined radio
An RTL-SDR dongle is the cheapest real entry point into software-defined radio, and it's a genuinely useful tool well beyond just listening.
Warminster Amateur Radio Club (K3DN): nets, meetings, and the hamfest
A rundown of the Warminster Amateur Radio Club's repeater, weekly nets, and meeting schedule for anyone local who hasn't checked in yet.
Getting your first AREDN node on the air — a practical checklist
From picking hardware to joining the JFMDNA mesh — a practical walkthrough for getting your first AREDN node configured and connected.