Subj : Introduction ...
To   : Ed Vance
From : AKAcastor
Date : Thu Mar 14 2024 11:49:34

 EV> You asked about the length of a Packet Radio Session.
 EV> When I was logged in to the Packet Repeater BBS I would 
 EV> select the option to have ALL new messages sent continually.
 EV> When the Buffer on the C=64's terminal program was 
 EV> almost full, I would press the Key to tell the BBS to Pause.
 EV> Save the Buffer to floppy disk, Clear the Buffer and 
 EV> then type the Command to have the BBS resume sending what it had for me.

The original offline mail reader!  That's gotta predate QWK by a few years! :)

 EV> It may have been I would have had my Epson FX-86 
 EV> printer print all of the info the BBS sent to me.
 EV> Under the Printer was a Box of FanFold Paper.
 EV>
 EV> I may had printed everything, logged off and then start reading.

Printing everything to fanfold paper makes me nostalgic and I wasn't even there! :)  (I did print to fanfold paper from my Tandy 1000HX in the 80s.)

 EV> Back two years ago when DSL was working here, I used an BAT File to run  EV> a FTP Script that would Sign In, GET new mail on this BBS, Log Off.

I have been using Blue Wave offline mail reader on Roon's BBS but ran into Y2K problems when posting messages.  I might have missed RTTY and radio BBSes but I remember the (mostly) DOS based BBS offline readers fondly. (QWK, Blue Wave, Silver Xpress)

 EV> Chris, about 110Baud ASCII, I "think" (C) TM it is 7 bits.
 EV> I haven't seen any purffed(?) tape to know if there 
 EV> were 7 or 8 Holes in it.

Makes sense that it would be 7 bits.

 EV> RTTY Baudot tape has 5 Holes I know as a FACT after 
 EV> handling many, many miles of it in the Ships Radio Room.

I'm just realizing - you must have had an actual 'bit bucket' also?

 EV> I tuned my Transceiver to the Frequency that W1AW made their RTTY  EV> Broadcast on 20 Meters (14 Mc/s) because after the RTTY Broadcast they  EV> sent the same Bulletin(s) in 110 ASCII.
 EV>
 EV> After the ASCII broadcast ended I typed:
 EV>
 EV> CQ CQ CQ DE W9ODR K
 EV> on my terminal, which meant " A general call to anyone, from me, over.
 EV> I figured some other Ham who could receive ASCII would hear me and answer.
 EV>
 EV> YEP!!!!!!!
 EV>
 EV> I made Contacts several different days doing that.
 EV> And the first time I did that it proved that I could Send ASCII as well as
 EV> Receive&Decode it.

Nice trick to make contacts!  Must have felt pretty fulfilling to get your first answers and know for sure your transmission is working correctly and everything is good!

 EV> Instead of cussing out someone you would call them a LID or a BIG LID.

I hope I can remember this in the moment when someone next pisses me off. I am sure I'll get confused looks when I call someone a LID but I will have the satisfaction of knowing what it means.  :)  (though I do know a couple friends who would immediately 'get it' if I called them that - maybe I'd be surprised by others.  secret HAMs may be out there.)


Chris/akacastor

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 * Origin: Another Millennium - Canada - another.tel (21:1/162)

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