home
***
CD-ROM
|
disk
|
FTP
|
other
***
search
/
QRZ! Ham Radio 8
/
QRZ Ham Radio Callsign Database - Volume 8.iso
/
pc
/
files
/
p_term
/
ad16dis.exe
/
USERMAN.DOC
< prev
next >
Wrap
Text File
|
1992-12-31
|
23KB
|
499 lines
USERMAN.DOC - ARES/Data Remote Packet User Information
Be sure to also read QUIKREF.DOC - Packet Operator Quick Reference
Version 1.6
OVERVIEW OF ARES/Data
Briefly, ARES/Data may be regarded as a specialized multiple-port,
multiple-connect database with a specific command set tailored to the
handling of information input, search, listing, and summary requests.
In addition, the system provides a full-featured conference bridge so
that all connected stations may converse conveniently with one another.
The ARES/Data network is a star network with the ARES/Data database
machine at the hub. It looks something like this:
_______ARES/Data Database Machine_______
| | | |
Port A Port B Port C Port D
| | | |
radio radio radio radio
.. ... ... ....
. . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P
Each "P" represents a remotely-connected packet station which is
connected to the ARES/Data database machine. All the remotely-connected
stations have shared access to the data in the system. In particular,
the packet operators can utilize two groups of functions provided by
ARES/Data which are described in detail in this file:
I. send/receive status requests and current information to/from
the ARES/Data database station
II. send/receive short messages to/from other remotely connected
stations or the sysop (Conference Bridge)
A. CONNECTING TO THE ARES/Data DATABASE STATION
TNC SETTINGS FOR REMOTELY CONNECTED PACKET STATIONS: These are
quite important for efficient operation of a master/slave network
like ARES/Data! Use the commands appropriate for your type of TNC:
TAPR, AEA, PACCOMM: WA8DED:
DWAIT 25 (250 MS) * W 25 (250 MS)
MAXFRAME 1 * O 1
FRACK 10 (10 SEC) * F 10 (10 SEC)
RETRY 10 * N 10
AX25L2V2 ON * V 2
RESPTIME 10 (1.0 SEC) * @T2 100
TXDELAY 40 (400 ms) * T 40 (400 ms)
NOTE: Set paclen larger than the longest input line you expect to use.
For example, if you will have 4 20-character fields plus an 80 char.
message, then to include four commas use
PACLEN 164
Next, using the ARES/Data callsign that has been chosen by the sysop,
simply initiate a connection.
(Note: if the sysop is running a G8BPQ switch at the main database
station, this first connect will be to the switch. Usual commands
like NODES, ROUTES, etc. are available. In addition, a new command,
ARESDATA, will connect you to the ARES/Data application.)
After a successful connect, acknowledged by "ARES/Data System
Online", you may begin to interact with the database or use the
conference bridge. By the way, always be patient in waiting for a
response from the system - as you can see from the diagram above,
there may be a large number of operators using the system, and at
1200 baud, you may have to wait for responses at times. If you are
collecting information from a group of voice operators (see Section
D.4), activate your voice net on the designated simplex frequency if
needed. Note that in this case the packet operator needs two
antennas (one for packet and one for voice) with the antennas
arranged to eliminate de-sense (unless the packet portion is set up
on an alternate band, which is preferable).
B. WHAT INFORMATION IS STORED IN THE DATABASE
ARES/Data organizes the incoming data into "records", which you can
view as a group of pieces of information about some particular
person, place, or thing. Each record is given a unique "record
number" by the program. Here is what can be stored in each record:
field1,field2,field3,field4,message
where each of fields 1-4 can be a 20-character string, and the
message string can be 80 characters long. The distinction between
the "fields" and the "message" is that the "fields" are organized
internally by the program so that the packet operator can request
searches and summaries on the information in any one of the four
fields. Searches and summaries cannot be performed on the
information in the message field.
If this sounds a little abstract, don't worry. It is one of the
major virtues of the system that the meaning of the stored
information is not defined in advance. In this manner, ARES/Data
can be used in a variety of ways, depending upon the particular
disaster or emergency at hand. In a given event, the sysop can
issue a "labels" command that gives particular meaning to each of
the fields and the message, so that all know how ARES/Data is being
used for that event.
For example, in an evacuation, you may want to keep track of
evacuees at shelters. Then you may want the fields to mean:
Name, Shelter, Status, PhoneNumber, Contact person.
On the other hand, if there is a multiple-casualty incident, you may
want the fields to mean:
Triage number, Sex/Age, Ambulance, Hospital, Condition.
See the paper on ARES/Data in the 7th ARRL Computer Networking
Conference Proceedings (1988) for more examples.
C. GENERAL RULES FOR CURRENT INFORMATION INPUT
(NOTE: If the database has been set READONLY by the sysop, you will
not be able to enter information, change information, or delete
information. However, you can still search and list the database
entries.)
Enter the four fields and any message, in order, with separators
between the fields. The only valid separator is the comma. Within
a field, leading and trailing blanks are ignored, but imbedded
blanks ARE significant. If no value is desired for a particular
field, just skip the field by adding an extra comma. The database
will fill that field with ten blank characters.
D. SYNTAX FOR CURRENT INFORMATION INPUT:
field1,field2,field3,field4,message<cr>
(<cr> means carriage return)
1. FIELD1 - FIELD4
The four fields are very general. Each can have up to 20
characters, with imbedded blanks. Entries can be in upper
or lower case, or a mixture, but are converted to UPPER case
before being stored in the database. The meaning of each field is
defined in real-time by the ARES officials, depending upon the
nature of the event. The sysop can issue a "labels" command that
will give specific names to each of the four fields to help the
operators remember what they mean. Similarly, the remote packet
operator can type "labels<cr>" to see the current label
definitions.
2. MESSAGE
MESSAGE is a free-form field that can be up to 80 characters long.
It could contain a message, a phone number, an address, or other
information deemed useful for the incident.
AUTOMATIC ORIGIN FEATURE:
When a record is initially entered into ARES/Data, the callsign of
the originating station is automatically added to the beginning of
the message field in the format "<W1AW> rest of message here ".
This origin identifier automatically changes if another station
alters the record later. As a result of this, the effective length
of the message field is 80 minus the number of characters in the
origin identifier, which is usually more like 72 characters.
3. EXAMPLES OF DATA INPUT
4085553195,joe,12,sj34<cr>
Johnson,mary,93445,sj13, home 2333 Alsace Ln SJ 617-555-1212<cr>
All of the input information is stored in the database
as a record of the status and location of a particular person,
place, or thing at a particular time and date. The time and date
are added automatically by the ARES/Data program. Further STATUS INPUT
packets for the same person, place, or thing will also be saved
in the database. The time and date will identify the most recent
information.
4. DETAILED EXAMPLE INPUT TO THE ARES/Data DATABASE
Suppose that the four fields have been defined to be: LAST NAME,
FIRST NAME, SHELTER NUMBER, and basic physical CONDITION. This
example also assumes that a voice operator is telling the packet
operator what to type in. If voice operators are not in use, the
packet operator simply types the information in directly.
Voice Operator says: Packet Operator types:
This is current info, (nothing)
The last name is Johnson Johnson,
The first name is Joe Joe,
The shelter is RS03 (Riverside Shelter 3) RS03,
The condition is "okay" ok,
(optional) The message is "came with dog" came with dog
which should look like this on your terminal:
Johnson,Joe,RS03,ok,came with dog<CR>
The ARES/Data Database will acknowledge your input, for example, by
"1450: data input accepted, #234."
or, by sending an error message requiring a re-entry. The
acknowledgment contains the current time and the record
number for that person's entry in the database. Note that
the program adds the actual time and date to each entry, which you
can see when you list the record (see below).
If you later enter more information for the same person, you
would re-enter the same last and first names, and then enter
new values for any other fields that have changed. BOTH entries
will be kept as a sort of "audit trail" of what has happened to
that person. Alternatively, you can just change the value in the
specific field that has changed (see the next section).
E. CORRECTING AND/OR UPDATING INFORMATION
If you accidentally enter incorrect information into the database,
or if the information in a particular record has changed, you have
several options. You can delete the entire record, or you can
change the value in a specific field of a specific record.
1. DELETING A BAD RECORD:
You can ask the sysop to delete the bad entry by typing:
tell sysop ooops, typo. pse delete #234.<CR>
OR, if the sysop has enabled the remote delete feature, you
can delete this entry yourself, and then re-enter the correct
data. To do this, you first make sure you know the record number,
then use the delete command: "d nnnn<CR>"
d 234<CR>
This function is always enabled at the sysop keyboard. Its use by
remotely connected packet stations is controlled initially by the
configuration file during program startup. Thereafter, the sysop
can disable or enable this function as necessary. Be extremely
careful in using this command! Always list the record first
before deleting to be sure you have the right one.
2. CHANGING (UPDATING) A PARTICULAR FIELD OF A PARTICULAR RECORD:
The syntax for updating fieldm of record nnnn is:
#nnnn,m=new text for fieldm<cr>
where m = 1-4 for the first four fields, and m = 5 for the message.
For example, suppose you needed to change the value in field3
of record 235 to "shelter 9". You would type:
#235,3=shelter 9<cr>
Note that when you correct or update a single field like this, the
time and date for the record are not changed. ARES/Data responds
by showing you what the old values for record 235 were, and what
the new values are according to your update command.
F. INFORMATION THAT MAY BE REQUESTED FROM THE ARES/Data DATABASE
The packet operator can request several types of searches of the
ARES/Data database. S/he can request a search for a specific value
of any one of the four main fields. In this case, the ARES/Data
program sends back to the packet operator a status report listing
all entries in the database having the specified value for the
selected field. In addition, the operator can request a "wildcard"
search, which looks for any entries in a specific field that START
with a particular string. The Packet Op can also request a summary
for any one of the four fields, which is a list of the number of
entries in the database for each distinct value of that field (see
Section H). The operator can list single records in the database by
specifying the record number.
For example, suppose that for a particular incident, the sysop has
designated field1 to be the person's last name. Suppose the packet
operator needs to find the information on all people in the system
with a given last name. The operator sends a search request for
field1, stating which last name s/he is interested in. The
ARES/Data system will respond with all entries with the given name;
one line for every entry in the database matching that name. If the
operator knows only the beginning of the name or if the name is
long, the wildcard search is very useful.
G. SEARCH REQUESTS
1. SYNTAX FOR SEARCH REQUESTS
/1,value<cr> for field 1
/2,value<cr> for field 2
/3,value<cr> for field 3
/4,value<cr> for field 4
or
?1,value<cr> for field 1
?2,value<cr> for field 2
?3,value<cr> for field 3
?4,value<cr> for field 4
This type of packet instructs the database machine to look in the
database for ALL entries with the same entry as "value" in the
specified field. The string "value" must exactly match what was
originally typed in for the selected field, with leading and
trailing blanks removed, and without regard for case. The initial
character of the search request can be "/" or "?" - use whichever
is most convenient. The two formats are handled identically. A
status report listing all information for each match is sent back
to the requesting packet station. The first line gives the search
value and the field number. At the end of the report, the line:
"ARES/Data Search done at 1534, nn hits."
is sent, which signifies no more information coming, and
that "nn" matches (or hits) were found in the database.
2. WILDCARD SEARCH OR PARTIAL SEARCH
The syntax for a wildcard or partial search is:
/n,val*<cr>
where "n" is the field number (1-4), and "val*" means that you want to
search for all entries in fieldn that start with the characters
"val". The response from the system is identical to that for an
exact search request. This is very useful if a particular field
has been defined to hold more than one piece of information. For
example, suppose field 1 is defined to be "Lastname-Firstname" so
that Bill Jones would be entered by the line:
Jones-Bill, shelter3, OK, 444-555-1212, message<cr>
Now if you did not know Mr. Jones' first name, you could still
search for him in the database by typing
?1,Jone*<cr>
and you would retrieve all records whose first field began with
the characters "JONE".
3. DETAILED EXAMPLE OF SEARCH REQUEST
Assume that the label definitions are the same as in D.4
above. This example applies to a last name search request
(field1).
Voice Operator says: Packet Operator types:
This is a request for last name search /1,
The name is johnson johnson
which should look like this on your terminal:
/1,johnson<CR>
The ARES/Data database will acknowledge your request by either
stating that there are no entries in the database for that value
for field1, or by sending a status report which looks like:
Exact Search for value "JOHNSON" in Last name
Recno DT/Time Last name, First name, Shelter, Condition, Msg
234 23/1124 JOHNSON,JOE,RS03,OK,<W6ABC> CAME WITH DOG
ARES/Data Search done at 1530, 1 hits.
Some versions of ARES/Data may have disabled the search features
for certain fields to save disk(ette) space and speed access.
(And for some situations, it won't make sense to be able to
search on any field). If searches have been disabled, you will
get a message like this one:
Cannot search on this field, index file not in use.
H. SUMMARY REQUESTS
$1<cr> produces a list of all distinct
values for field1, with the number
of entries in the database for each
$2<cr> similar, except summarize on field 2
$3<cr> similar, except summarize on field 3
$4<cr> similar, except summarize on field 4
For example, suppose field 3 were defined to be the shelter name.
After the packet operator types "$3<cr>", ARES/Data sends a summary
on field 3, which may be interpreted as a list of shelters, with the
number of people that have checked in to each shelter.
I. LISTING SPECIFIC ENTRIES (RECORDS) IN THE DATABASE
l nnnn<cr> Lists record nnnn
The response will be a short header showing the labels for the
various fields, and then the complete information for record nnnn.
l nnn,mmm<cr> Lists records numbered from nnn to mmm
l all<cr> List ALL records in the database.
WARNING: be careful with this command, as it may cause a
large number of packets to be sent on the channel. You can
stop an undesired "list all" by simply disconnecting from the
ARES/Data machine. This will cause no harm. Then just
reconnect.
J. DOWNLOADING FILES
You may download a file from a special public directory on the database
machine by typing:
get filename<cr>
This facility is intended to be used and controlled by the sysop in
the sense that s/he controls what is in the public subdirectory and
whether this feature is on or off. One file that is currently
provided with ARES/Data is an "info" file, which gives more
information of interest to general users. If the sysop has copied
this file to the public subdirectory, you can download it by typing:
get info<cr>
If the sysop deems that it is useful, this complete documentation
file can be downloaded by typing "get userman.doc<cr>", but please
remember that a lot of packets will be generated by this operation.
To get a listing of the files available for downloading from the
public area, type
dir<cr>
K. CONFERENCE BRIDGE (roundtable - "users" and "tell" commands)
This feature allows any connected station to send messages to other
connected stations or to the sysop.
1. Users command:
The users command, in the form "users<cr>" or "u<cr>", returns a
list of the callsigns of currently logged-on packet stations. The
response is of the form:
Users at WN6I-1 (AX0): N6KL W6BB-3 W6XYZ WB6MRQ-7
Users at WN6I-4 (DR0): 0:N6KL-3 1:N5BZK 3:AA4RE-12
Note that there is one line for each port defined in the ARES/Data
system, so that you can see who is using which port. The
callsigns used by ARES/Data for the verious defined ports do not
have to be identical. After the database callsign, the port name
defined by the sysop during startup is shown in parentheses. Note
also that for the DRSI packet adapter, several radios and even
several boards can be attached to the database machine. All the
users connecting to the DRSI adapters are treated as being on one
port of the ARES/Data network. You can refer specifically to the
user on DRSI sub-port 1 by putting a "1:" in front of the
callsign: "1:N5BZK". In general, however, this is not really
necessary, since as far as ARES/Data is concerned, "N5BZK" or
"BZK" will do just as well (see below).
2. Tell command:
The Tell command allows connected packet stations to use ARES/Data as a
conference bridge, or roundtable. The general format is:
tell callsign message<cr> or:
t callsign message<cr>
For example:
tell w6bb-3 The food truck just arrived at SJ12<cr>
The message "The food truck just arrived at SJ12" is sent to the
connected station W6BB-3 prefaced by a time stamp and the call of the
station originating the tell command. In this case, if the tell
command was sent by W6XYX, W6BB-3 sees:
1230 W6XYZ> The food truck just arrived at SJ12
It is not necessary to enter the entire callsign - just the suffix or
some other substring will do. If several connected callsigns contain the
substring, each station will get the message. The special callsign
"*" or "all" is used to send a message to all connected stations. The
special callsign "sysop" sends the message to the sysop at the ARES/Data
database station.
END USERMAN.DOC