Subj : Re: Packet Radio
To   : SetiOp
From : tenser
Date : Wed Jan 20 2021 14:27:03

On 19 Jan 2021 at 05:44p, SetiOp pondered and said...
 
 Se>  lu> In Argentina have many BBS in  packet radio via intenet and RF.
 Se> 
 Se> I wish I could find out how to get people interested in it here in Canada
 Se> again. We had quite a good network in our area at one time. I am happy
 Se> to see that people are still using it and I might be able send traffic
 Se> to others via RF. I am still deciding what to set up here, but I am
 Se> looking forward to having something on the air.

So it's an odd thing.  Having recently gone through the hassle
of setting up a packet station _and_ an AMPRNet subnet, I've
got some thoughts.

First, packet.  So an initial observation is that the thrill of
packet for _most_ users just isn't going to be there.  What does
it really offer?  The ability to send email and exchange files?
At the whopping speed of 1200 BAUD?  Yeah, that's just not that
cool.  Digital modes like FT8 and FT4 at least let you earn awards
and work DX; but packet is just like talking on the local repeater:
no one is going to get a certificate to hang on one's wall for it.
So the remaining uses end up being special-purpose, like traffic
handling.  Hey, there's nothing wrong with that, but let's be
honest: if you're not a traffic handler, you're unlikely to find
it particularly interesting.  C'est la vie; the heaviest use of
my local repeaters seems to be the nightly traffic nets.  Hmm.

Another issue is that the node software has bitrotted to the point
of often not working.  I've fixed lots of bugs in mine; it now
"works", to a point, but is disappointingly fragile.  It's clear
that that code hasn't gotten a lot of love in the modern era.

AMPRNet is more interesting, but what do people want to run on it?
Standard Internet services, just over an RF circuit?  Well, that's
cool, I guess.  I set up a Unix machine as a timesharing "host"
on my AMPRNet subnet, and wrote a routing daemon, and documented
how to set up an AMPRNet gateway on OpenBSD.  That was all fun,
but as many accounts as I can give out to local hams, what are they
going to login and do?  Play `adventure`?  Hunt the wumpus?  I
guess that's fine, but only holds so much interest.  The inevitable
conclusion is that the only real reason to use it is some kind of
special-purpose use, like traffic handling.  But the local traffic
handlers are all used to use FBB or BPQ or JNOS or node or whatever;
should I write special code for those folks that's just gratuitously
different?  Hmm.

Which goes back to the point of bugs and such in the software we're
all using on e.g. AX.25.  Arguably all of that should be rewritten
in a modern, type- and memory-safe language, but then one wonders,
what's the point?  Why go to that effort for supporting low-speed
AX.25?

What we really need, I think, to make data on amateur radio really
interesting, is an embrace of the new.  Something like IPv6 over a
better link-layer protocol (perhaps 6LoWPAN?) and then things like
HamWan and the BBHN stuff (which seems to have basically shut down).
Then we can start to do some cool stuff.

But we've got to get folks interested first.  That's the hard part.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A46 2020/08/26 (Windows/32)
 * Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)

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