apr 07

DIGIdag in Bladel afgelast

Posted on 7 april 2015 by Peter PA3PM

De DIGIdag, die volgende week zaterdag 11 april a.s. zou plaatsvinden in Bladel, gaat niet door. De organisatie heeft hiertoe besloten door de slechte toestand van het terrein waar dit evenement plaats zou vinden.

“Het is naar ons inzien niet verstandig om in deze tijd van het jaar een dermate grote activiteit te houden wanneer de grond nog een complete modderpoel is.”, aldus de organisatoren, zo valt te lezen op de website van PI4KAR.

Mensen die zich reeds aangemeld hebben krijgen eventueel betaalde gelden terug. De organisatie laat weten: “Momenteel zijn wij druk bezig met het plannen van een nieuwe Digi-dag later in het jaar, wanneer we het klimaat een beetje meer aan onze kant hebben, en we dus meer garanties hebben dat we een voor iedereen plezierige dag kunnen organiseren.”

Meer informatie en updates zijn te lezen op de website van PI4KAR.

apr 04

Google Maps tijdelijk uitgeschakeld op APRS.fi

Posted on 4 april 2015 by Peter PA3PM

Inmiddels werkt APRS.fi weer!

Google Maps disabled on aprs.fi temporarily due to a TOS accident

I woke up today to find out that Google Maps are disabled on aprs.fi, and the site is slightly crippled.Google had noticed that aprs.fi has integrated support for OSM map tiles *and* Street View. I hadn’t noticed that the combination of Street View on top of anything else than Google Maps is forbidden according to the Maps API Terms Of Service document. Or I had just forgotten about it when implementing OSM or Street View (there was probably a year or two of time between the two, and probably another year or two since I actually read the lengthy TOS).

Google had nicely sent me a few emails to warn about the unapproved combination, first one already on 5th of March. I had moved away from reading emails regularly in Gmail a long while back, but forgotten to arrange for these emails from Google APIs to go to my primary email address. Silly me. Since I didn’t respond or do anything about the situation, they disabled Maps API, which certainly got my attention.Oh well. OSM support is disabled for now, and I notified Google that aprs.fi is again compliant with the terms. Should be back soonish.I might put OSM support back later, and remove Street View instead, as OSM is probably more useful in practice at some areas (although admittedly less visual and “cool”). Or maybe make some sort of arrangement where Street View only works if you have Google Maps selected instead of OSM. Have to check with the Google folks if that’s OK.I’ll post updates on Twitter (https://twitter.com/aprsfi) and Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/aprs.fi). Stay tuned.

My mistake entirely, although quite a human one. When did you last read the full text of the license agreement of your new application or mobile phone? 🙂
Posted by Heikki Hannikainen at Thursday, April 02, 2015

apr 03

Verbeteringen uitgevoerd aan het DMR-MARC netwerk

Posted on 3 april 2015 by Peter PA3PM

On March 26th, DMR-MARC announced that it had completely transformed its North American DMR-MARC network by implementing two redundant core servers – one on the US East coast and the other on US West coast, which will allow all North American DMR-MARC member organizations to connect to its global, regional and language-specific talkgroups. In addition, DMR-MARC partners networks in Europe have also implemented a similar system with CORE servers of their own, located in Germany and the United Kingdom. This network update is important as it will improve the overall reliability and performance of the global DMR-MARC network.

“I’m pleased to report that nearly all of the North American DMR-MARC member c-Bridges are now connected to the CORE servers” said Tim Barrett, K6BIV, one of the DMR-MARC network administrators. “The only change you might note is that the North American talkgroup (TG 3) no longer has any connections outside the continent. Worldwide English (TG 13), is made available globally to reach any English speaking member.” further added Tim.

In addition to the network updates, DMR-MARC also announced the addition of two new User Activated (UA) talkgroups – UA English 1 and UA English 2, similar to the existing TAC 310 network launched by the DCI network in March 2014. UA English 1 uses the talkgroup ID 113 and UA English 2 uses talkgroup ID 123. As their name implies, both talkgroups are intended for English language traffic only, however additional UA talkgroups have been created for other languages, including German, Spanish and French and will be made available as required.