Hello everyone! I am curious if anyone has packet radio being used in their local area for something other than APRS? Packet has pretty much disappeared here in Ontario, Canada, although APRS is still active. I appreciate your time.
73
Scott
VE3CGN
On 01-05-21 00:03, SetiOp wrote to All <=-
Hello everyone! I am curious if anyone has packet radio being used in their local area for something other than APRS? Packet has pretty much disappeared here in Ontario, Canada, although APRS is still active. I appreciate your time.
Avon wrote to SetiOp <=-
A future hope of mine is to try and get my Mystic BBS on the air and accessible via packet and TCP/IP connection.
A future hope of mine is to try and get my Mystic BBS on the air and accessible via packet and TCP/IP connection.
Do you have to be a HAM in order to make your BBS accessible in this manner?
In Argentina have many BBS in packet radio via intenet and RF.
In Argentina have many BBS in packet radio via intenet and RF.
I wish I could find out how to get people interested in it here in Canada again. We had quite a good network in our area at one time. I am happy
to see that people are still using it and I might be able send traffic
to others via RF. I am still deciding what to set up here, but I am looking forward to having something on the air.
But we've got to get folks interested first. That's the hard part.
On 01-05-21 06:35, SetiOp wrote to Vk3jed <=-
Thanks for the reply! I loved the BBS I had back in the day running
FBB. I was planning on moving to a Linux-based platform but it never happened. My biggest problem getting packet running here has been
antenna height, I need to put up a good digipeater before I can do much else to attract users. Sounds like an interesting project. I would be interested to see what you put together. :)
Avon wrote to Blue White <=-
On 05 Jan 2021 at 01:13p, Blue White pondered and said...
A future hope of mine is to try and get my Mystic BBS on the air and accessible via packet and TCP/IP connection.
Do you have to be a HAM in order to make your BBS accessible in this manner?
If you're asking about sending echomail over radio, then I would say
yes, given that the packet radio gear needs to be run by a licensed amateur radio operator. The frequencies you can use will also vary
between countries somewhat.
A future hope of mine is to try and get my Mystic BBS on the air accessible via packet and TCP/IP connection.
Do you have to be a HAM in order to make your BBS accessible in this manner?
If you're asking about sending echomail over radio, then I would say yes, given that the packet radio gear needs to be run by a licensed amateur radio operator. The frequencies you can use will also vary between countries somewhat.
Actually I meant allowing it to be accessed by hams via packet / TCP/IP. Of course, I guess once they log on I would be broadcasting, so that may have answered my question. :)
Indeed, it's exciting; I just got things hooked up so I can
gateway to 'telnet' to my Unix host when connecting into my
packet computer via AX.25, which is kind of cool. Sadly,
there doesn't seem to be a loopback interface for AX.25, so
to test it I connected to a local digipeater and then back
to myself. That works but is imperfect. Oddly, when running
a command that emits lots of text, I've found some goes missing;
I suspect I'm writing more text than will fit in a single
AX.25 packet; perhaps I'll pay with MTUs.
On 19 Jan 2021 at 05:44p, SetiOp pondered and said...
[...]In Argentina have many BBS in packet radio via intenet
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.
I would love to get data flowing over the air - with no ongoing costs to
a 3rd party, even if it was a slow speed. Building out (or optimising) a protocol to support this slow speed would be fun...
communications. It's a pity modems and copper cables have gone / are goingthe way of the dodo.
I wish I could find out how to get people interested in it here in Canada again. We had quite a good network in our area at one time.
I wish I could find out how to get people interested in it here in Canada again.
On 19 Jan 2021, SetiOp said the following...
I wish I could find out how to get people interested in it here in Ca again. We had quite a good network in our area at one time.
That's the trouble with a lot of amateur radio, and really some of the trouble I see with some of the people who think they're going to start
a revival with their novel BBS.
The nostalgia is briefly interesting, but then people move on. The only reason APRS is so popular is because it's built in to radios and takes zero effort to setup. On the other hand, packet radio is a absolute nightmare just to get the hardware/radio working right, even more so to try to have a successful contact.
There just isn't any benefit or usefulness to packet radio anymore... Other systems like winlink or olivia do it much better. And there isn't any sort of pushing the envelop of technology with it either, like there is with things like mesh.
As my elmer said to me, "You missed the boat by about twenty-five
years." I wish it weren't true, and I'll probably try to set something
up for the Milwaukee metro area this year, but I know it's all in vain.
But I think there's room for experimentation with data
and digital modes. Things like NPR ("New Packet Radio")
lot more sense) much of the argument is against the proposal
and much of the reason for that are septuagenarians and
older mad about PACTOR III. "What's wrong with AX.25?!"
We still have copper cables here in the UK! Most of the time, it feels like we're still in the dark ages with connectivity, internet and communications etc.
the speed can be
at least 2400 bps, I think any slower than that, it would need to be a different theme entirely, just plain ascii or something and very cut
down.
On 01-10-21 04:41, tenser wrote to SetiOp <=-
Personally, I think every Ham should grab an AMPRNet allocation:
either we use that space or we lose it. The sale of the /10 to
Amazon a couple of years ago was a huge boon for the community,
in that it gave ARDC a pile of money that it could use for grants
etc, but ironically also shows that we're underutilizing our
available resources. Using an HT to call into the local FM
repeater is great and all, but not really all that interesting.
I did get my stuff working again, and I updated my 44net routing
software (my router runs OpenBSD, sadly, so the stock solutions
for Linux didn't work for me) and wrote up instructions on the
AMPRNet portal:
https://github.com/dancrossnyc/44ripd https://wiki.ampr.org/wiki/Setting_up_a_gateway_on_OpenBSD
I have a timesharing host on my subnet (finger @kz2x.ampr.org
to see if anyone is logged in...). I also have a RockPi4
(quad-core aarch64 with 4GiB of RAM, an NVMe SSD, and a real
ethernet PHY/MAC, not a USB bridge) running Raspbian that
connects to a 2m rig through a Tigertronics Signalink USB
soundcard. The RockPi runs direwolf, and what I'd like to do
now is configure ax25d so that connection to some AX.25 SSID
will automatically telnet to the timesharing machine (that
part could be SSH, since it doesn't go over the air, but who
cares?), then someone can use `axcall` or another AX.25
terminal to connect into my Unix machine and have access to
AMPRNet. This should be easy, except that, ironically, line
endings are causing problems. I'll probably hack up `axspawn`
to make it run telnet instead of invoking a shell.
On 09 Jan 2021 at 12:39p, SetiOp pondered and said...
The cool thing about AMPRNet is that you don't need to your
ISP to route anything to you; you can do it all over tunnels.
That's what 44ripd does; it reads AMPR RIP packets and sets
up subnet tunnels and routes. Definitely check it out!
The cool thing about AMPRNet is that you don't need to your
ISP to route anything to you; you can do it all over tunnels.
That's what 44ripd does; it reads AMPR RIP packets and sets
Hello everyone! I am curious if anyone has packet radio being used in their local area for something other than APRS? Packet has pretty much disappeared here in Ontario, Canada, although APRS is still active. I appreciate your time.
On 01-14-21 14:42, lu8fjh wrote to Vk3jed <=-
In Argentina have many BBS in packet radio via intenet and RF.
I have F6FBB via radio and internet telnet lu8fjh.dyndns.org:6300 lu8fjh.dyndns.org:3694 Uronode Netrom tcpip Node
Two system acces via my Mystic bbs lu8fjh.dyndns.org
On 01-20-21 14:27, tenser wrote to SetiOp <=-
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
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.
My ideal would be (as part of a wider plan of communications resilience) to have bbs FTN running over RF packet as a wider option for people to connect should TCP/IP over 'mainstream' internet channels be taken down due to act of god or man etc..
practice exams before I feel I'm ready. One of these days I'll be VE3<something> and be able to press talk on this handy talky that I have...
The nostalgia is briefly interesting, but then people move on. The only reason APRS is so popular is because it's built in to radios and takes zero effort to setup. On the other hand, packet radio is a absolute nightmare just to get the hardware/radio working right, even more so to
There just isn't any benefit or usefulness to packet radio anymore...
First, packet. So an initial observation is that the thrill of
packet for _most_ users just isn't going to be there. What does
So the remaining uses end up being special-purpose, like traffic
handling. Hey, there's nothing wrong with that, but let's be
AMPRNet is more interesting, but what do people want to run on it?
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 we really need, I think, to make data on amateur radio really interesting, is an embrace of the new. Something like IPv6 over a
On 01-22-21 03:48, JF wrote to Avon <=-
Amen! I'm very interested in this, and I've been pondering about it for
a while. What I imagine is something equivalent to how BBS used to
work: mail would be transferred from BBS to BBS over the phone lines,
from point to point, in such a way as to avoid any long distance
charges. The same could be done with RF: transfer FTN messages from one VHF station to the other (or maybe even HF), so that we don't
necessarily depend on the internet in case of an emergency. Mail could
be routed via different mediums, and there would be a mechanism in
place to avoid duplicates and figure out the best path (Internet,
phone, HF, VHF, etc.).
Amen! I'm very interested in this, and I've been pondering about it for a while. What I imagine is something equivalent to how BBS used to work: mail would be transferred from BBS to BBS over the phone lines, from
point to point, in such a way as to avoid any long distance charges. The same could be done with RF: transfer FTN messages from one VHF station
to the other (or maybe even HF), so that we don't necessarily depend on the internet in case of an emergency. Mail could be routed via different mediums, and there would be a mechanism in place to avoid duplicates and figure out the best path (Internet, phone, HF, VHF, etc.).
charges. The same could be done with RF: transfer FTN messages from o VHF station to the other (or maybe even HF), so that we don't necessarily depend on the internet in case of an emergency. Mail coul be routed via different mediums, and there would be a mechanism in place to avoid duplicates and figure out the best path (Internet, phone, HF, VHF, etc.).
Now that sounds like an interesting project.
scale it in a way that others can jump on board and do the same. Without nodes in a mesh you don't have much resilience going on if you can only chat with yourself or 1-2 others locally.
Hi Tenser, sorry for the delay replying, I had issues with upgrading the BBS here, which I hope are now sorted out. I used to have AMPR address space many years ago and was looking to set something up again a few
years ago but there was very little interest in what I was trying to do.
I am interested in seeing what you can put together!
It sounds like you have been busy! I really need to look into AMPRNet again and check out the links you sent (thanks for that!). It sounds
like a lot of fun for sure. Now that I have the BBS back up, I want to
do some kind of gateways into different networks/machines as well. I am not sure how successful I will be getting my ISP to route a subnet to
me, but maybe.
It has been a long while since I did that kind of stuff
myself, so I would be learning it all over again. Great to hear packet
and ham radio alive and well in your area. :)
like AREDN, AMPRNET and HF ALE; I don't know much about them, but I
think some of them can provide you with IP connectivity. So yes, below
But I think there's room for experimentation with data
and digital modes. Things like NPR ("New Packet Radio")
Hadn't heard of it before now, but it looks pretty fascinating. A hell
of a lot more interesting then AX.25.
lot more sense) much of the argument is against the proposal
and much of the reason for that are septuagenarians and
older mad about PACTOR III. "What's wrong with AX.25?!"
That describes literally every aspect of the ham radio community. ARRL
and every club are so worried about losing the old guys with outdated interests that they keep wasting all their resources on that fear. Talk
to any of the kids under twenty-five and they couldn't care less about EmComm, packet, Facebook groups, etc. They want to experiment and tinker and innovate and build, communicate about it on Discord... and send
memes on SSTV.
That "when all else fails" mantra is fear-based too. "Please don't take our non-profit tax-free status and don't sell off our freqency allocations." We should be selling governments, youth, hackers, makers, and whoever else on the notion that we can be innovators again.
I don't know why I'm ranting. I started this reply merely to mention
that I find your posts, Tenser, to be really valuable.
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.
Which software exactly?
On 01-22-21 15:48, SetiOp wrote to Vk3jed <=-
charges. The same could be done with RF: transfer FTN messages from o VHF station to the other (or maybe even HF), so that we don't necessarily depend on the internet in case of an emergency. Mail coul be routed via different mediums, and there would be a mechanism in place to avoid duplicates and figure out the best path (Internet, phone, HF, VHF, etc.).
Now that sounds like an interesting project.
I agree. This type of project is something I could jump on board with.
On 01-24-21 03:14, tenser wrote to Vk3jed <=-
Approximately all of it, but I'm referring specifically to
the AX.25 tools and apps for Linux. An interesting example
Another issue was in the `ttylinkd` daemon: this is basically
an interface to the venerable talkd(8), and speaks the same
weird undocumented protocol. But its handling of that protocol
was broken (it didn't talk to the local daemon on the right
interface) so I had to fix it. That was really annoying.
I attribute all of this to this software being overly complex
and essentially unmaintained. I could fix it locally, but
its tedious.
Who knows what bugs are lurking in the kernel AX.25 implementation?
On 01-22-21 12:41, SetiOp wrote to Andre <=-
The nostalgia is briefly interesting, but then people move on. The only reason APRS is so popular is because it's built in to radios and takes zero effort to setup. On the other hand, packet radio is a absolute nightmare just to get the hardware/radio working right, even more so to
Yes I agree with you. There are enough of us still interested to build
a network, but it does need to have a new twist to keep people
interested. Packet has always seemed a bit complicated to me and it
didn't seem to evolve like other technology, maybe because of the limitations on VHF radio bandwidth.
There just isn't any benefit or usefulness to packet radio anymore...
I would agree partially with that. The same could be said for phone
modes as well now that we have cell phone technology. It isn't really a fault of the technology as much as what we choose to do with it. APRS
is a good example.
On 20 Jan 2021 at 03:10p, deon pondered and said...
I would love to get data flowing over the air - with no ongoing costs a 3rd party, even if it was a slow speed. Building out (or optimising protocol to support this slow speed would be fun...
I too would like to do this. I'm hot on building communications
resiliency and I like the idea of a ascii BBS running contemporary bbs software available to folks to access over RF.
I've not really played with the older 'built by hams for packet radio
bbs' software but from what I've seen I'm not sure I would really like
it.
My ideal would be (as part of a wider plan of communications resilience) to have bbs FTN running over RF packet as a wider option for people to connect should TCP/IP over 'mainstream' internet channels be taken down due to act of god or man etc..
I have F6FBB via radio and internet telnet lu8fjh.dyndns.org:6300 lu8fjh.dyndns.org:3694 Uronode Netrom tcpip Node
Is AMPRNet still a thing? I thought I had seen somewhere that it was
kind of going out.
Hello everyone! I am curious if anyone has packet radio being used in their local area for something other than APRS? Packet has pretty much disappeared here in Ontario, Canada, although APRS is still active. I appreciate your time.
On 05-03-21 04:50, tenser wrote to mobbyg <=-
AMPRNet is still very much a thing, but it's a massively
underutilized resource and more people should get allocations.
so I can start setting something up. I am hoping to link into Ohio since I am only 5 minutes from Lake Erie.I'm certain they'd love to have a Canadian on their network. We used to get a thrill seeing DX contacts crawling our nodes from New Brunswick, and they loved seeing us make our way up.
Thats pretty cool. I have a radio telescope in my back yard so I wrote a door to access statistics and get the status of it. At one point I had it soA radio telescope? Cool! Most I've done with space is download SSTV from the ISS and images from NOAA, and the one contact via the ISS repeater.
Here in east Tennessee we have a few Winlink nodes as well as quite a
few APRS digipeaters and even a couple weather stations. We don't have
any AX.25 nodes but I plan to change that here in the near future. :P
underutilized resource and more people should get allocations.
On 05-08-21 17:02, SetiOp wrote to Vk3jed <=-
Bummer. If you can't raise your coordinator, it's work asking on the 44net mailing list.underutilized resource and more people should get allocations.I haven't had any luck reaching any coordinators here in Ontario. I
Yeah I admit I haven't tried that, I'll have to do that. I am sure
there is some coordinator looking after the block who can help on the list. I'll try that.
On 05-05-21 20:04, SetiOp wrote to Vk3jed <=-
underutilized resource and more people should get allocations.
I haven't had any luck reaching any coordinators here in Ontario. I
used to have an allocation years ago but I lost it at some point. I'll have to try harder I guess. For now I am going to focus on getting the
RF running here.
Bummer. If you can't raise your coordinator, it's work asking on the 44net mailing list.underutilized resource and more people should get allocations.I haven't had any luck reaching any coordinators here in Ontario. I
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