Setting up a remote radio packet access site for DX Spots
A remote access site consists of a Windows machine with a
full time Internet connection, such as cable or DSL, running a software package
called BPQ32 developed by John Wiseman, G8BPQ.
A serial port on that machine is cabled to a TNC, such as a MFJ1270C,
running in KISS mode using a standard modem cable. BPQ32 creates a node with a ALIAS:CALL, such as ABCDX:N0XYZ.
Users can connect via radio to either the ALIAS or the CALL and receive a
greeting message with instructions to enter ‘DX’. Upon entering ‘DX’, BPQ32 issues a connect
request via the Internet to BPQ32 at the AE5E site, which then automatically
connects to the AE5E DX Cluster.
There are many possible hardware configurations for Internet
access. I will only deal with the most
common two. The simplest would consist
of a single computer connected directly to the cable or dsl
modem. The more likely configuration
would consist of one or more computers on your own local area network (LAN)
created by a home router connected to the cable or dsl
modem.
In the simple configuration the first step is to determine
the IP address of your modem, which in this case is also the IP address of your
machine. You may do this by running a
task on your machine, either winipcfg.exe or ipconfig.exe. One of the two should exist on your
system. To run, go to Start/Run and to
be sure you are in the root directory enter ‘C:’, and
click OK. This will open a copy of Windows
Explorer showing the C: drive. Now again
go to Start/Run and enter ‘cmd’ or 'command'. This will open a dos like window with a ‘c:\>’ prompt. At
this prompt enter ‘winipcfg’ or ‘ipconfig’,
one of the two will run (it depends upon what OS you have).
This IP address, which I shall call the WAN IP address,
gives us some important information. RFC1597 - Address Allocation for Private Internets
reserves several ranges of addresses that are used for private networks:
10.0.0.0 -
10.255.255.255
172.16.0.0 -
172.31.255.255
192.68.0.0 -
192.168.255.255
If your WAN IP address is within one of these ranges, then
your ISP has given you a private network address created by network
address translation (NAT). If your
address is outside of these ranges you have an address on the public
network. This information will be used
when editing the bpqaxip.cfg file.
If you use the home router configuration it is necessary to
set up the router to direct incoming UDP packets with port number 10093 to the
specific machine on which you will run BPQ32.
Assuming that you have the router properly set up so that machines on
your LAN have Internet access you will first need to determine the LAN address
of your BPQ32 machine. Follow the steps
above running ‘winipcfg or ipconfig’
to obtain this information. There are additional programming steps you would
take if you use the popular Linksys WRT54G: As an example, let us say that you
have determined that the LAN address of the machine on which you are going to
run BPQ32 is 192.168.1.101. Using a web browser on any
machine on the LAN, open http://192.168.1.1. You may be asked for a name and
password. Unless you have programmed it
to something other than default, skip the username and go to the password box
and enter 'admin'. When it opens click
on the 'status' tab. Note the WAN IP
address. This information will be used
when editing the bpqaxip.cfg file. Now
click on 'Advanced' and when it opens click on 'Forwarding'. Under 'Ext.Port'
enter '10093 to 10093'. Check 'Protocol
UDP'. Under 'IP Address' complete
192.168.1.101, the address of the BPQ32 machine you have determined previously. Check 'Enable'. At the bottom of the page click 'Apply'.
BPQ32 software is available on the BPQ32 Yahoo Site. The software is available as an installer.
Once installed an example installation for a remote outlet will be found in the
examples folder at Program Files\BPQ32\Examples\Remote. You will have to edit information, such as
your callsign, into BPQ32.cfg. Information on text changes you will need to
make are included as comments in that file.
BPQaxip.cfg is a configuration file to support the internet connection
to the AE5E-14 node without further changes, except in rare cases described in
the next paragraph.
While many ISP’s give you a public network address, which is
a ‘real internet address,’ others will give you private network address. They do this to conserve ‘real internet
addresses’ and also to prevent you from operating a server, although they may
insist they are protecting you from hackers, which is not altogether
false. The mechanism is Network Address
Translation (NAT) and a full explanation is beyond the scope of this article. If you receive a private network address,
your ISP has you behind NAT; you will have to periodically ‘kick their NAT box’
to keep the return path open. You do
this by adding an additional parameter “KEEPALIVE seconds” in the bpqaxip.cfg
file. The following are examples of
bpqaxip.cfg, one if you have a public address and the other if you have a
private address:
In BPQAXIP.cfg (If you have a Public IP Address):
…
MAP AE5E-14 dxspots.com UDP 10093
In BPQAXIP.cfg (If you have a Private IP Address):
…
MAP AE5E-14 dxspots.com KEEPALIVE 120 UDP 10093
In this later configuration a KEEPALIVE packet is sent to
dxspots.com after 120 seconds of no network activity to or from that
address. This special packet, which is
discarded by the other side, is sufficient to keep a return route from
dxspots.com alive in the ISP’s NAT box, without which the NAT box would send
the incoming packet to the bit bucket.
Experimentally 120 seconds was found to be frequent enough to do the
job. KEEPALIVE does generate network
activity, so it’s unfriendly to use it if you do not have to, nor to set the
time too low.
You must put your TNC in KISS mode. For a TNC2, such as a MFJ1270C, set the baud
rate to 9600, connect the device to a terminal emulator and issue the command “
When you are ready to test a connection to AE5E you should
have done the following: Having
determined if you have a public or private WAN address and based upon that you
have configured BPQaxip.cfg appropriately.
Confirm that the COM port you are using matches, including the baud
rate, within BPQ32.cfg. Now execute
BPQTerminal.exe and let it run.
If BPQ32.cfg and BPQaxip.cfg are configured correctly you
should be able to connect immediately to the AE5E-14 BPQ32 node. Test the connection by typing C AE5E-14 into
the bottom window of BPQTerminal.exe. If
the connection is not made, let BPQTerminal.exe run for at least 15 minutes to
allow your system to send another nodes broadcast to AE5E-14. When AE5E-14 has received your nodes
broadcast a connection should be possible.
Should you need help send me an email at my obvious arrl.net address; if
it’s not obvious visit qrz.com. If a connection can be achieved, then your
radio users upon connecting to your node can simply type DX and be connected
via UDP protocol on the Internet to my DX Cluster.
There are many more things to learn. You can for example connect to your node from
other machines on your LAN, or from another remote location. This is very convenient to verify that your
node is working without using a radio link.
Doing so will require the use of other UDP port numbers. It is best to have a UPS on your BPQ32
machine. Windows can be configured to
start from power up without the need for a password and immediately start
bpqterm.exe. I will try to document
this and some of the additional options when I have time. What I have provided so far should be
sufficient to get your ‘remote outlet’ functioning.
If any of your users
are running MFJ1270B’s or C’s, they must be told to set the parm
ACKPRIOR=OFF. The factory default is ON
and it simply does not work in a multi-user environment. Two or more MFJ users with the default
ACKPRIOR=ON will experience very unreliable operation and may even kick other
non-MFJ users off of your system. An acceptable
set of parms can be obtained by using the RESET
command to return to the factory default set.
Then set ACKPRIOR=OFF. There are
other parms, which in an environment of many users
may be useful, but this is the critical one!
This document:
BPQ32_Remote_ReadMe_v2r3 2014/05/05.
Obtain the software at the BPQ32 Yahoo Site
73 de Ron AE5E