I’ve been running the Sandaysoft Culumus software since October last year and have nothing but praise for the software, it allows you to do everything from downloading data from weather station base units, to Tweeting the information. One thing I’ve always thought was the themes for web pages weren’t up to much so the I spent some time this month developing my own but in a way it could be useful to others.

The idea was to use a local city/town scape background then display all the different areas of data within boxes, its also easily customisable if you want to add more menu tabs and extra content you can see a live copy of the theme at http://wx.prettygoodprojects.com/

The theme and all its files including PSD files are hosted on Github http://github.com/magicbug/Culumus-Weather-Theme/ your free to download, use, tinker.

The system has been completely designed from the ground up the question system we had been using since the launch of the site really wasn’t up to the job so we started looking into new systems to use which ranged from free to well over $600.

But as hamtests.co.uk is run as a free service to the amateur radio community it was completely out of the question getting a system at $600 so we decided to use the free option which was to use moodle which is used a lot by Schools and Universities around the world (if its good enough for them surely its good enough for us!).

We spent the next month or so customizing to look just the way we wanted it and also added all the questions to the system including now all licence levels in the United Kingdom.

One month later we’ve finished the system and its now implemented and running on the live service for people to use, and I really recommend you go check it out!

Theres nothing to it just enter ones postcode and click the button and you will be shown your locator hopefully its right too!

If you want to check it out go to http://www.m3php.com/locator 

So I’ve changed to Ham Radio Deluxe (HRD) change over was a peice of cake, export the adif file and reimport it into HRD.

Main thing with HRD is that it does everything! rig control, satellite tracking, logging so its one less thing I need to have open on the shack computer or laptop.

Another thing I’ve come to like is the Web Page Output option so you can post what freq, mode, rig, time/date of the last time you were active on the bands!, this feature has now been implamented onto my site and can be found at the bottom right of the screen!

In other news I’m still trying to find a good way of having my log on screen, its just it would be easier if I could get say a POST request from HRD to push towards a php script then put it into a mysql database (if its there i’ve not found it yet!)

The first thing you need to do is to make sure you have downloaded N1MM Logger, and the latest updates from the Yahoo groups site and the latest version needs to be on every pc that your going to be using in the contest.

Now you need to make sure you have all the IP’s of the station computers that are going to used on the network if you are using windows 95, 98, Me you can find out your IP by going to the start button on the left hand side of the computer screen then go to run and type in c:\windows\WINIPCFG.exe or if you using Windows 2000, XP you can find you computer IP by going to Start then Run and typing CMD and press enter the Dos window comes up and type ipconfig /all this will display your computer IP.

Once you have got this entire information load up N1MM Logger and setup the contest then go to ?Config? on the tool bar then make sure the Multi-User mode is ticked if its not click on it.

The next thing to do is in the same menu click on ?Edit Station Computer Names? it will then bring up a box with two columns one with ?Stn #(0-15):Stn Name? & ?Computer IP Address? this is were you need to enter in all the information about the station computers, and their computer IP Addresses.

The first Stn PC with will be the master computer which will provide Packet/Telnet to all computers, set the computer clock on every computer so the times the same on them all, below is my setup the first one is the HF station which I am using as the master computer just incase I need to turn off the packet monitoring computer.

Once you have done this you can make sure they are taking with each other by going to Windows on the Toolbar and click on ?Info? it will then display if the computers are taking to each other and passing information to each other.

Once you have setup the Multi User support in N1MM Logger if you go to Config then Multi User Tools it will display all the options available that you can use in the program. The main features are the following

* Maximum of 16 networked computers with one ‘master’ station (0-15).
* Use of standard network interface cards (NICs).
* IP-addresses are used during configuring.
* Talk capability between networked stations.
* Automatic time synchronization.
* Pass frequency information between stations.
* Packet
o Distributed to all connected computers.
o The ability to send packet commands to the master station, from there it will be sent out to the cluster.
* Error messages when a station can’t be questioned / updated.

Multi User via the internet:

It is possible to setup some or all of the other stations outside your LAN on the internet. There are some caveats when trying this. You need more than basic computer knowledge for this. You need to know about IP-addresses, firewalls, routers, port settings, NAT etc.

You need to know your computer (external) IP-address. When directly connected to the web this can be obtained using the program ipconfig.exe (NT, 2000, XP) or winipcfg.exe (95, 98, ME). This command ipconfig should be entered in a DOS window to see the output. When your computer is in a LAN your connection to the internet will probably be made via a router. All computers will use internal IP-addresses; the router uses the external IP-address. This link will give your (external) ip-address in both cases: http://megawx.aws.com/support/faq/software/ip.asp

When a multi-user connection is not working anymore check the IP-addresses. This address changes from time-to time (when dynamic). Mostly after a reboot from PC when directly connected or a reboot from your router when in a LAN.

The router should be setup to route incoming traffic from port 12070 to your PC IP-address. No port transformation should be done. Instructions for this will not be given in detail. With the many different kind of routers this can not be done. Remember, this is a specialist job!

Firewall – Open port 12070 for incoming traffic.

Router – You probably should use NAT to route incoming traffic on port 12070 (for first PC in the list) to your PC IP-address.

Anyways I hope this helps a bit when setting N1MM up for Network Logging.

Peter, M3PHP