O.k. so after my whining about Paclink/Winlink, I ramped myself up and got on the air last night.
Soldered up a cable for the trusty borrowed PK-88 to run my FT-7800 and began packeting away.
I have a local frequency with a BBS or two and shelter databases for RACES/ARES use. That's all pretty neat, but not much in current activity, it's mostly a reserve network for emergencies.
I scanned around 145.01 03 05 07 09 for activity.
I found some activity but it's fairly far away and I can't get direct connections there unfortunately.
All my local nodes are the evil Paclink and basically if you try to do a connect 'via' with them, they just keep kicking you out.
Anyone have any tips to find nodes?
Tips on figuring out 'route's to other areas?
I don't run Windows, so aside from my general dislike for the way Paclink interoperates (or doesn't) with normal packet, it's not even an option for me.
It's interesting and I'll give this thing some time, but my initial impression is that there isn't much going on here and making the commitment of leaving a 24/7 node up wouldn't do much for me....I do feel like I'm just not quite getting the point though...will have to see what I learn about this.
Soldered up a cable for the trusty borrowed PK-88 to run my FT-7800 and began packeting away.
I have a local frequency with a BBS or two and shelter databases for RACES/ARES use. That's all pretty neat, but not much in current activity, it's mostly a reserve network for emergencies.
I scanned around 145.01 03 05 07 09 for activity.
I found some activity but it's fairly far away and I can't get direct connections there unfortunately.
All my local nodes are the evil Paclink and basically if you try to do a connect 'via' with them, they just keep kicking you out.
Anyone have any tips to find nodes?
Tips on figuring out 'route's to other areas?
I don't run Windows, so aside from my general dislike for the way Paclink interoperates (or doesn't) with normal packet, it's not even an option for me.
It's interesting and I'll give this thing some time, but my initial impression is that there isn't much going on here and making the commitment of leaving a 24/7 node up wouldn't do much for me....I do feel like I'm just not quite getting the point though...will have to see what I learn about this.