[Ribbit-Developers] Packet format

[Josh Datko]

On Tue, Jul 25, 2023, at 3:02 PM, W4CKX via Ribbit-Developers wrote:

> In an emergency, the situation would be cellular denied with limited to no connectivity. So wouldn't MQTT be reliant on having an Internet network running?
> Remember that the nodes (user radios) are loosely connected on ad-hoc transmissions.

It would not. I think I saw a diagram of yours where the main ARES station is operating like a hub-and-spoke model. So this was my thought, it is only a thought and perhaps need some more.

Imagine the ARES hub with a laptop/server/pi etc... It has an SDR receiving 4 uplinks at the same time (this is another idea I've been toying with as it would reduce wasteful collisions but requires more coordination). On this server, these 4 channels are being decoded with the command-line modem into messages and are being "published" to the mqtt server, on the same machine. 

In this case, MQTT is really no different than any other message queue technology it's just I feel there's a danger of implementing a message queue by accident instead of using MQTT or any other one perhaps.

The UI interface for the operator could be a UI client, it would also be a MQTT client subscribing to these messages but that would obviously be abstracted. Then when the operator wants to send a message, the software would publish a message to the server on the local host which would direct it to the appropriate radio etc...

Say now you have 2 computers, well, nothing really changes. One computer could be the mqtt server with the radios, the other is the UI,

Say there are 3 computers, 1 with the receivers, one with the UI, one with the transmitter. If they are all on a local network, then this works still just fine without any major software modifications besides where is the mqtt server.

Anyway, if it's not a fit, it's not a fit. It's just what I immediately thought of when I saw your presentation.

> 
> I hear your feedback on PWA apps.
> I am curious to learn:
> Does a PWA app allow access to the phone audio in/out microphones, speakers, line mic in, line out?
> And this reliably across phone makes and models?


I think this was answered in the other email, but it should do anything the browser can do with the pros and cons mentioned there.

In any case, very impressed so far with the effort. I wish I had more time to try this, but I will try some experiments where I can and I'm noodling a local ham club presentation. Maybe I can try some repeater experiments, but I will give some heads up on the air as to not confuse so many people why there are modem sounds over the repeater perhaps.