[svlug] Packets over ham radio.

[Rafael]

On Wed, 26 Jul 2000 dfox at belvdere.vip.best.com wrote:

> > Amateur radio is a non-commercial communications media which cannot be
> > used for open Internet traffic because of ethical, political, technical,
> > and other reasons. For example, short waves are not capable of handling
> 
> So, for instance, a bunch of hams can construct a number of nodes and
> do IP (or the equivalent) over packet radio, but one or another of the
> nodes in the network can't actually connect to the Internet?

Yes they can and they do connect packet radio to the internet but need to
make sure the traffic does not carry anything that's not allowed by the
FCC. A few repeaters are connected to the internet in voice mode and you
can listen to them, not sure about the transmit though. If you are
licensed then perhaps you could transmit on remote station over the
Internet as well. I don't have a URL right now that has more info and
links to transmitters.

N0ARY used to run a link between packet radio station and Internet over
Sparc 5 machine here in the Valley. Don't know if that's still there or
not. The speed was no that great, 1200 Bd. I made a small single chip
modem to connect handheld 2m radio to my laptop. Old DOS days.

http://www.tapr.org/tapr/html/pktf.html has Linux related info about
packet radio. You don't need to learn Morse code anymore in order to
"play" with packet radio. Any person with IQ over 100 should be able to
learn basic rules and pass the test these days.

One interesting area is APRS where the station reports it's location every
few minutes. You can see where the mobile stations are, on boats, aircraft
or in cars. If the vehicle gets stolen you just ask a friend to track
it down and call the cops :-)

Check the net.


   O__  ---- Rafael Skodlar
  c/ /'_ --- Linux Imagineer since 1994
 (*) \(*) -- There is a tunnel at the end of light.