Subj : Packet Radio
To   : SetiOp
From : Roen
Date : Sun Mar 14 2021 11:25 am

Boy, I wish I had linked up fsxNet sooner, I missed a great conversation! I
spent all evening last night reading this thread. All great, valid points.

Packet is alive and well here in Maine, and we're linked into New Hampshire and
Canada via Houlton, but you're right: it's a very niche market. It's primarily
EMAs and hospitals linked with club ECTs and ARES groups. Most of the folks
around me in Southern Maine that are tinkering with it here seem to be retired
folks with the time to constantly tweak audio levels and mail forwarding rules.
I'm one of a few exceptions, age-wise, at 41 years old. However, I'm in it for
the emcomm as well.

I brought up the idea of AREDN out here, but was told the elmers had already
done the path studies and found we're too hilly. If we could get to the top of
a couple commercial / emergency services towers on a couple of choice
mountains, we may be able to set up an AREDN backbone, but then it gets
political. I think things are shifting a little in our favor, but who knows
when we'll see the results.

I also found on Facebook that North Carolina has a massive network with guys
chatting with each other over the nodes. I'm not sure what their core purpose
is, but they are having fun with it. For an introvert like me, and an insomniac
that "plays radio" at night when the family is asleep, digital text is a great
tool. I wouldn't mind seeing it come back to what I'm told is packet's original
glory.

For giggles, I set up a security level for known hams on my board, and set up
telnet links in the Doors menu to the nodes I'm a sysop for: WS1EC at the
Cumberland County EMA, and W1YCA at the York County EMA; and their respective
emergency communications teams (ham clubs). I'd love to have a radio link into
my BBS, but sadly it'd just be me, and it def needs 9600 to be barely tolerable
and still color ANSI.

Anyway, fun chat - it's great to see others out there with similar interests!

73 de KC1JMH
Brad

---
 þ Synchronet þ El Burro Diablo - elburrodiablo.com
 * Origin: fsxNet FTN<>QWK Gateway (21:4/10)

.