WS6Z’s Simplex Mapping System

Repeater and Simplex Mapping Tool

This software is designed to map repeater and simplex nets, allowing users to graphically repent on a map who can talk to who/what. This may be highly useful for passing messages between stations.

At the moment, only the 2 meter frequency is really represented.

There is a public installation of the system available at:

http://map.ws6z.com/

There, accounts can be created, repeaters can be listed, and signals logged.

This version was completely rewritten from what is documented below and uses the leaflet mapping code to render the maps in a much more pleasant and interactive way. The web interface also is significantly improved, graphically, via the use of twitter’s bootstrap css/js.

EVERYTHING BELOW IS OUT OF DATE

Project Details

http://simplexmap.hamtools.org/docs/

Note that this isn’t the easiest set of software to get up and running, and these instructions aren’t 100% complete. But it’s getting easier and the instructions are getting better.

I’ll grant anyone who needs it a group account on the public server if you’d rather do that than install the software on your own server. [I recommend you start with using the public one at least]

Required Software

Perl Modules

• Getopt::GUI::Long (it’s possible to make this optional; let me know)
• DBI
• DBD::SQLite
• Geo::Coder::US
• GeoDB::Utils (Get it from geoqo.org)
• GraphViz
• IO::String
• Ham::Callsign

Software

• ImageMagick
• graphviz

Creating the initial database

To create the initial database, which is stored in an SQLite file, run the createdb script:

./createdb -d mydb -u WS6Z -g mygroup -p sharedpassword -P myadminpassword

This will create the ‘mydb’ file and populate it with the minimal required data: a single user (WS6Z) and a single group (mygroup) with both a shared password and a administrative password for the group. Obviously you should change the passwords to something specific to you. And it’s unlikely you’ll want to use my callsign :-)

Installing the cgi-script that drives it all

• modify the simplexmap program to point to your data. Specifically, in $opts:
  • set the ‘d’ option to the full path file for your database created above
  • set the ‘H’ option to the FCC callsign database created with ‘cs’ (you can grab a copy from http://www.hamtools.org/dbs/hamsigns) (size: 526M)
  • set the ‘g’ option to the tiger db file (you can grab it from http://simplexmap.hamtools.org/geocoder.db) (size: 884M)
• cp simplexmap /your/cgi-bin

Creating your own Tiger DB file

XXX

Creating your own FCC database file

XXX

Contacting the author

Wes Hardaker < wes & ws6z.com >