[Coco] Amateur radio CoCo net

[John Guin]

Just thinking out loud, but would this project:
http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2010/10/impressive_software_radio_lets_you.
html

Let me (or all of us w/o radios) to listen in?  Does anyone have the savvy
to see if this would actually work?

Thanks,
John

-----Original Message-----
From: coco-bounces at maltedmedia.com [mailto:coco-bounces at maltedmedia.com] On
Behalf Of Aaron Wolfe
Sent: Monday, October 25, 2010 1:32 PM
To: CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts
Subject: [Coco] Amateur radio CoCo net

Tomorrow evening at 9:30PM EST we will have a net on echolink node 522348.
I'll have the node online 30 minutes prior if you need to test your
connection.

Last week the group decided we should try to open the net to all interested
CoCo nuts using some conferencing mechanism that is not limited to licensed
radio amateurs.  If anyone has suggestions or comments on a method that
would work well, please let me know.

What I've found so far is that every VoIP platform seems to have a gotcha.
The best seems to be Skype.  There are Skype clients for all major
platforms, although it is limited to 25 users in a conference.
That may not be an issue for us.  I think the largest ham net had only
8 participants.

Another option is Mumble.. http://mumble.sourceforge.net/    This is
open source, has clients for Win/Mac/Linux and has no limits on
participants.  However, the installation and setup is not as simple as
Skype.  I'd like to make it as easy as possible for any interested people to
join.

Beyond the program used, there is the question of format.  Right now we do
an informal sort of round table, with one person responsible for directing
things when needed.  Since all participants are ham radio operators with
experience in how these things work, and there just aren't that many of us
in the conference, it flows pretty smoothly.
I wonder if we had more people (and people who are not practiced in how to
maintain order in a potentially chaotic situation) if we should try to
organize things a bit differently.  We could do short
presentation(s) with Q&A, or simply a more directed conference with someone
controlling the flow.  I think some of the conferencing programs let
participants "raise their hand" via some indicator.

The target date for a first "open" net is November 2nd.

-Aaron

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