Subj : Re: Packet Radio
To   : dejavu
From : Vk3jed
Date : Wed Jun 17 2020 15:12:00

-=> On 06-16-20 13:21, dejavu wrote to Vk3jed <=-

 de> APRS is widely used in the US, however Packet is still widely used.
 de> What's happened with Packet is that all the original hams are gone and
 de> the packet infrastructure that was running on Kantronics TNC's, for
 de> example, have also failed.   The talent that use to maintain them is
 de> also gone so there is no one to pick up the slack.

Yeah a lot have gone.  I've gone back to my roots with the BPQ route, except
that I'm now running LinBPQ on a R-Pi, instead of BPQ.EXE with KA9Q NOS on a
DOS PC. :)

 de> If we all did our part to put up packet nodes on the existing VHF/UHF
 de> frequencies we could keep it alive and well and leverage all the
 de> existing packet nodes that haven't dismantled, as well as offer a whole
 de> new breed of messaging capabilities via BBS that never existed
 de> previously.

I will have to pull my finger out and get a radio hooked up.  I have a spare 2m
port on a VHF/UHF diplexer, which can be used for packet.  I'll probably have
to setup a dedicated BBS that's ham only, though I would network it to this one
(with security restrictions), to make it easier for me to access mail.  I'll
probably need a conventional FBB style packet BBS so I can access packet
bulletins.  I haven't seen software to gate them to FTN - searches have turned
up empty handed. :/  I know there used to be packet - FTN gateways back in the
90s and there have been BBSs on FSXnet that have gated bulletins, but never
found out how they were doing it.


.... I had a monumental idea this morning, but I didn't like it.
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