Sidebar Sidebar
  • You can now help support WorldwideDX when you shop on Amazon at no additional cost to you! Simply follow this Shop on Amazon link first and a portion of any purchase is sent to WorldwideDX to help with site costs.

PACKET RADIO


Using a TNC is certainly one way of doing it, but there are others. One is to use the sound card in your computer as the TNC, several programs floating around that do that. Then it's just a matter of cables and an interface. The interface is more of a 'separater'/isolater than anything else. A transformer of close to the right impedance for mic-in on the sound card and audio-out from the radio (speaker). Then the opposite direction for the input to the radio. Several variations of that, no idea which you'd need. Not all that hard to build, but several commercially available thingys around too. Computers and radios just LOVE each other, you know! Typical 'male'/'female' thingy, always interfering with each other, sort of. A bucket of torroids comes in very handy even with a TNC.
That sound card as a TNC opens up a bunch of other 'digital' modes too. Worth looking into.
- 'Doc
 
I got involved with packet as we use it extensively for RACES work. We keep track of people going in/out of storm shelters using packet databases and pass emergency message traffic using BBSes and the Outpost application.

I completely saturated myself with it for about two months and got myself IP assignments and had hybrid internet routing configured as well as packet routing for the North East Flex Net.

It's very useful stuff to know if you have any intention for ARES/RACES work as it is invaluable for passing data when all other infrastructure is down and you don't want to tie up voice channels with long message traffic sessions. Much faster to just type and send on packet than relaying message forms via voice.

However, if you don't have a natural technical curiosity about how it works and you don't have a need for ARES/RACES use, I have to warn you that you will very likely find little in the way of human activity on packet...at least in my area NY/NJ metro. It's mostly bulletin boards with the same autogenerated messages being routed through them.

I can log in and get from ME to FL up and down the coast through the network and find the same messages on all the BBSes along the way. I've actually found maybe four actual people active during my few months of playing with it.

Just don't blow a lot of money expecting a hot bed of activity. Only do it for the heck of it. I got a lot of enjoyment from it and still like poking around on the networks, but it is its own nerd specialty for sure.

I've used a Yaesu FT-7800 and also a Kenwood TS-2000. The Yaesu I recommend using the mic jack and speaker output...I had a heck of a struggle trying to get the audio levels from the data port to work properly with both hardware TNCs and also with soundcard mode. The TS-2000 has an internal TNC and works much better.

I've used hardware TNCs and various sound card interfaces. I would recommend borrowing a hardware TNC or picking one up used for <$50 to get started. That way you will know how packet 'should' work before you get into tweaking all the audio settings and other parameters to get the latency right with the soundcard method.

AGWPE is the software for Windows packet soundcard and in Linux it is referred to as soundmodem.
 
I would try some of the other digital modes instead of packet. PSK31 is a fun one that has plenty of activity and you don't need the TNC.
 
I played with packet when it first started. Thought it would be a pretty neat way of 'talking' to people. SR385's right, don't think I ever found more than maybe one or two people 'live' on packet. My interests changed.
Played with SSTV for a lot of years! It's addictive, especially if you like to 'mess' with pictures anyway, and I do. (Never send me a picture of yourself unless you want to see 'changes' made to it! ;))
Back into packet on VHF now, or at least trying to get there. Things have certainly changed! Getting there though.
If you can't do it with 5 or 10 watts, you're just doing PSK31 wrong! Mars, Saturn and the closer comets ought'a be easy at 100 watts! (Don't do that! More than about 20 watts is totally ridiculous.)
'Nuff of all that...
- 'Doc
 
was heavy into it when i first licensed back in the nineties
was kind of fun , handled a bunch of health and welfare traffic
for people from my area who had loved ones in the first gulf war

i once sent out a gripe letter about a very crummy tv show on cbs
that put hams in a bad light ,
imagine my surprise when it got read on "newsline" a week later

it doesnt have the same following it did back then ,
now in our area the equipment and freqs are used for APRS

mainly used for location reporting of storm spotters during severe weather

it's rather disappointing to me , but it seems that "packet " is dying around here , all the other digital modes have surpassed it
and you dont need any special equipment other than a computer with a sound card , and some freeware ,

psk31 and sstv are both very fun, as others have mentioned

by all means try it out , maybe your in an area where its alive and kicking

73
 

dxChat
Help Users
  • No one is chatting at the moment.


      Top Bottom
      Back