Hello to all EME and / or VHF operators....I just posted my announcement
of our DXpedition to Zone2. Please check that out if you can.
We do have one problem that we have not been able to solve at this
point. There is NO Internet where we are going. There is no WiFi, no
telephones, no DSL, no cell phone towers, nothing as far as I can
determine. I really don't want to do this expedition without Internet
as the coordination is really helpful. Twice in the past, when I had to
go where there was NO Internet available, I took a BGAN terminal. Cost
to rent one is about $800US. HOWEVER, you also have to purchase a "Data
Plan". They really hit you hard on this. When we went to DL88 on 6M,
after it was all over, the BGAN rental company said that I had exceeded
my data plan and charged me another $600US on the credit card. Just
lovely! When we went to the Falklands, I took another BGAN terminal and
I discussed this problem very carefully with the tech supervisor there.
I did not want that to happen again. Well, after the first day, I had
blown my Data Plan and had to shut the terminal off. I could not afford
another $600 per day! If it had not been for the help of VP8LP-Bob and
VP8AIB-Janet, his wife, we would have not had any Internet for the rest
of the trip. Bob and Janet were able to arrange DSL Internet for us at
the QTH of Neil-VP8AWU, our host. Essentially, this saved our
expedition. I am extremely grateful for the help that these folks gave
us so that we could have Internet while we were there.
Basically, we need to limit the traffic through the BGAN terminal to
TEXT ONLY, with whatever headers are required.
I have an idea on how to solve this problem, but it will require someone
who can program a small client program which we will use in
Zone2 AND a server piece that will do the communications. This is
beyond my programming ability. I don't care if the programming is
pretty, it just has to work. My idea may be garbage, but basically, I
want to restrict the traffic through the BGAN terminal to just the
TEXT that we and the clients out in the world send(plus headers, of
course). NO HTTP, NO WEB PAGES, NO WINDOWS UPDATES, NOTHING but the
text we are sending are receiving. IF there is someone that might help
us on this, it would really be great. Clearly, this little bit of
software could be used again and again for other expeditions, where
there was little or no Internet coverage. IF you think you might be
able to help, please get in touch with me at k5qe@k5qe.com. Please use
the Subject = Zone2 Client so I can sort the emails on this subject from
all the other stuff. Thank you very much.
We really do need some help here, so please, please help us if you can.
73 Marshall K5QE
Phone is 409-787-3830 if you want to talk
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