SuperPacket

New web page - A Brief Survey of Technological Innovation in Amateur Radio

This is a paper I wrote for the ARRL and TAPR Digital Communications Conference 2022.

A Brief Survey of Technological Innovation in Amateur Radio

By Steve Stroh N8GNJ¹
ARRL and TAPR 2022 Digital Communications Conference Charlotte, North Carolina, USA 2022-09-16 thru 18

Abstract

In recent decades, the perception of Amateur Radio within the general public has shifted from Amateur Radio being useful, innovative, and an interesting technical activity, to Amateur Radio being perceived as an anachronism and largely irrelevant (except in the direst of communications emergencies). Summarized: “Ham Radio – that’s still around?”

Amateur Radio’s service to the public for emergency communications is being supplanted by improved commercial and government communications capabilities such as improved Iridium² satellite phones, the FirstNET³ public safety cellular system, and most recently, the nomadic capability of the Starlink⁴ broadband satellite system.

Amateur Radio has continuously developed unique technological innovations in radio technology, and that has not only continued in the modern era but has accelerated. However, that ongoing, unique contribution to technological society is, increasingly, unrecognized. That is unfortunate. If regulators, lawmakers, industry, the general public... and the Amateur Radio community itself understood the unique contributions to technological innovations in radio technology that Amateur Radio continues to develop, perhaps such recognition might improve Amateur Radio’s perception that it remains a valuable part of society, worthy of continued access to portions of the electromagnetic spectrum.

Keywords

Amateur, Radio, Operator, Ham, Wireless, Technology, Innovation, Spectrum, Digital, VHF, UHF, SHF, Microwave, Communications, ARDC, Techies, Makers, Hackers, Zero Retries Newsletter, Experimentation, Research and Development, FlexRadio, Steve Stroh N8GNJ

Background

For decades, I have been an admirer of technological innovation in Amateur Radio. Not just new technologies like Packet Radio emerging in the 1980s, but new techniques for old problems such as digital techniques enabling reliable communications via unreliable mediums such as the High Frequency (HF)⁵ (aka Shortwave) portions of the electromagnetic spectrum.

Amateur Radio’s unique culture, the varying characteristics of various portions of spectrum allocated to (or shared with) Amateur Radio operations, and the many highly capable and skilled Amateur Radio Operators, have resulted in a fertile, and welcoming “experimental zone” for technological innovation in radio technologies. Until recent decades, that culture of technological innovation was widely recognized, and encouraged. In the last few decades, the recognition of

1 Email – [email protected]
2 https://www.iridium.com/network/
3 https://firstnet.gov/network
4 https://www.starlink.com/rv
5 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_frequency

A Brief Survey of Technological Innovation in Amateur Radio

Amateur Radio’s utility and contributions to technological innovation have been deprecated to near irrelevence... at least in popular perception... by ubiquitous Internet access, mobile phones, caricatures of Amateur Radio as “Grandpa sitting in the basement tapping on a Morse Code key”, and most notably, the removal of old barriers to individuals communicating across international borders.

A primary reason that this is a concern for society is that it has become irrevocably dependent on radio technology as the primary method of communications for mobile devices, most notably cellular technology, wireless local area networks (Wi-Fi), and most recently, direct-to-user satellite communications. For many people, their mobile phone is their only method of communications and media consumption. Much of that technology has been developed and manufactured in China. Dependence on China for such a critical infrastructure function is proving to be fraught with peril. To counter that peril, the US and other Western nations must quickly develop additional expertise, and personnel, “in nation” to better develop and support this now-critical wireless infrastructure. Amateur Radio can be a “training ground” for developing familiarity and expertise with radio technology, leading to careers in developing and supporting radio technology... but only if Amateur Radio is recognized as a useful and interesting.

The rise of technology specialists, especially those trained in Information Technology (IT), the “Maker culture”⁶, and the “Hacking Culture”⁷ have breathed new life into Amateur Radio. “Techies” have discovered Amateur Radio as an enabling technology for supporting experimentation with Information Technologies (such as building hobbyist / not-for-profit wide- area microwave networks). Makers have discovered that there are incredibly interesting things that they can add to their personal knowledge base and practical projects based on capabilities Amateur Radio has long taken for granted, such as long-range communications via VHF / UHF repeaters. Hackers have discovered Amateur Radio as a fertile “playground” for their experiments and expansion of knowledge about radio technology, such as Software Defined Receivers... and Transmitters (with an Amateur Radio license).

I started the Zero Retries Newsletter⁸ in July, 2021 out of frustration that the totality of technological innovation in Amateur Radio wasn’t being recognized by the Amateur Radio community, its regulators, and especially the public at large. Specifically, I was worried about the growing public perception that Amateur Radio is irrelevant, or worse, an anachronism. Such a perception, if it is to continue for much longer, may prove catastrophic to Amateur Radio, most notably in the loss of Amateur Radio access to various portions of spectrum. To date I’ve published more than fifty weekly issues of Zero Retries, and each issue highlights some aspect of technological innovation in Amateur Radio.

Literally, Amateur Radio is a license to experiment with radio technology and a welcoming “innovation zone” to develop new and exciting technological innovations in radio technology. I hope to make that point with the vignettes in this paper.

 

6 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maker_culture
7 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacker_culture
8 https://zeroretries.substack.com (will eventually migrate to https://zeroretries.org)

...

Read the rest of the paper at:

https://www.superpacket.org/n8gnj_dcc_2022_final_for_web.pdf

 

More Thoughts on RadioMirror

Original article - Revisiting RadioMirror

The nice mention of Revisiting RadioMirror by KE9V spurred this update. I'd been gathering notes since the Revisiting RadioMirror waiting for a good excuse for an update. Thanks Jeff!

The Use Case for RadioMirror
One of the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People that has become ingrained in my thought experiments such as this is Begin With The End In Mind. How do you want the idea you're trying to present to turn out in the end? Thus, with any new system, It's totally appropriate to ask "What problem does RadioMirror attempt to solve? What itch does RadioMirror scratch?" These are my answers.

• In my area, one of the primary Amateur Radio websites (no, I won't name it) that should be a primary reference for Amateur Radio activity in my area is horribly out of date. Websites for "amateur" organizations (those that don't have skilled / paid / motivated staff to maintain them) just... drift out of date, and out of relevance. Such sites are worse than useless - they detract from what they intend to help because the information they provide is inaccurate. Putting up one's own site is possible, but that's also not easy to maintain (and secure).
• The great hope of Automatic Packet Reporting System (APRS) was that it can (theoretically) be a universal guide to resources in an area. But that depends on resources to be constantly advertised via APRS. My (admittedly limited) experience is that APRS never quite lived up to this potential. But, maybe it could with the addition of RadioMirror being advertised. Imagine a RadioMirror Server advertised on APRS - "Tune 224.76 every evening from 12:00 - 3:00 for N8GNJ RadioMirror Update".
• We're Amateur Radio Operators - shouldn't we figure out a way to use Amateur Radio for distributing information?
• Disasters do happen, including widespread disasters can take down communications infrastructure. Despite my pessimism about the relevance of traditional Amateur Radio emergency communications, I think there can be a role for Amateur Radio to solve unique problems.
• A meeting I attended recently discussed two things that were conceptually inter-related. One emergency communications group is planning to update their master list of communications facilities - repeaters, simplex frequencies, net schedules, DMR talk groups, etc. A later discussion was "what to do about the group's communications van"? How often does the information in a comm van get updated? Wouldn't it be useful if a communications van had a RadioMirror receiver, constantly receiving updates, and if the comm van has to be activated in a hurry, wouldn't it useful that all the necessary information onboard was updated the previous evening?
• Ditto personal Go Kits. How many times have you grabbed the Go Kit, transported it, set it up to use it, and discovered that the last time you updated the info in the computer was way too long ago, impacting your ability to communicate? Add a RadioMirror receiver to the Go Kit and power just that unit while the Go Kit is in standby.
• RadioMirror allows each Amateur Radio Operator to contribute information into the community, to the limits of their ability and willingness to aggregate and present data.
• RadioMirror would be a great way to improve the utilization of our Amateur Radio bands, and especially make voice repeaters relevant again. Individuals (see line above) who don't have stations that can be heard simplex can use repeaters to make their information more widespread.
• There's ample room for innovation. One of my personal experiments with RadioMirror will be to experiment with transmitting simple HTML files so that the information I want to transmit will be easily accessible.

RadioMirror's Time Has Come?
As I discussed in my first article about RadioMirror, I think it's a concept whose time has come. In 2021, we have all the elements necessary to implement RadioMirror:

• Ample available channel time on our bands above 50 MHz, including unused time on repeaters.
• Inexpensive computers that we can dedicate to the task (Raspberry Pi). I'll discuss why dedicated computers are important for RadioMirror to work.
• Inexpensive "all band" receivers such as the well-designed, but inexpensive ($27!) RTL2832U software defined receiver. With such a receiver we can use any band above 50 MHz, including our underutilized 222-225 MHz, 420-430 MHz, and 430-440 MHz bands for RadioMirror.
• We have powerful software for both packet radio and the receive function. In particular, we have the Dire Wolf packet radio engine and it has three primary capabilities right now that lends itself to RadioMirror:
  • 4800 bps speed (which reportedly works well even with radios that don't have "flat audio" input / output such as the FT-2980R mentioned below.
  • Keep It Simple Stupid (KISS) interface that is a software bridge to the legacy RadioMirror implementation (necessary for prototyping "RadioMirror 2K")
  • Implementation of FX.25 which is a Forward Error Correction (FEC) extension of the usual packet radio AX.25. Using FX.25 with RadioMirror would add additional robustness with little overhead, especially if higher speeds like 4800 bps were used.
• We have powerful radios (especially on 144-148 MHz). For example the Yaesu FT-2980R has a maximum transmit power of 80 watts (and uses a large heatsink rather than a fan). Ham Radio Outlet sells this radio for $149 at the moment. Yes, duty cycle would be an issue - I'll address that.

More than one RadioMirror is a good thing.
There's no reason to have only one RadioMirror system in an area. It would actually be a good thing to have more than one to avoid the "BBS SysGod Effect" that we endured in the Packet Radio Bulletin Board System (BBS) era where some BBS Sysops tended to censor (delete) any content that they didn't personally like from passing through their BBS (even "private" messages).

Federation
I can envision several RadioMirror systems in a given area, each with a focus. For example, my RadioMirror system would focus on data communications. Another might focus on Emergency Communications information. Another might be the files for a particular Amateur Radio club. There's no downside (that I can imagine) in receiving files from each one. Each night my RadioMirror receiver can tune to a different one to update my file system for each one.

RadioMirror and Bulletin Board Systems
I haven't yet discussed Bulletin Board Systems in the 2020s (a future article, likely to be a long one). RadioMirror is a perfect complement to BBS systems as it's an efficient method to distribute files widely into BBS systems. The nature of RadioMirror is that it's not a fast way way to retrieve a particular file (you have to wait for it to be transmitted in turn), whereas if you needed to quickly view a file, a BBS would be a better method of doing so.

RadioMirror as a First Project for new Amateur Radio Operators
Conceptually, a RadioMirror receive station can be as simple (and inexpensive) as a Raspberry Pi, an RTL-SDR software defined receiver, and a simple wire antenna such as a twin-lead J-pole. A (better) addition to the station would be a USB flash drive to store the received files. Everything else is a "simple matter of software". Because such a station is receive-only, you wouldn't even need to be a licensed Amateur Radio Operator to use such a system.

Duty Cycle
Despite the seeming robustness of the Yaesu FT-2980R mentioned above (large heat sink), in my experience, and what I've been told by much more experienced Amateur Radio Operators, is that any radio specifically made for Amateur Radio use is just not built for continuous duty cycle (no matter what the manufacturer says). It's simple - Amateur Radio Operators are price-sensitive. Thus radios manufactured for the Amateur Radio market are primarily optimized for cost. Thus, if you're going to use an Amateur Radio unit for transmitting RadioMirror, it would be best to not use it at 100% duty cycle (transmitting 100% of the time). If you do, the radio will inevitably fail. There are two solutions for this issue:

• Don't operate at 100% duty cycle. Perhaps transmit for one minute, wait one minute, then transmit for another one minute. Even on a radio like the FT-2980R, use a fan on the heat sink (use a bigger, slower one so that the noise isn't objectionable)
• Instead of a radio built specifically for Amateur Radio, use a radio designed for commercial use that can withstand a 100% duty cycle. Repeater Builder is an excellent reference for using (converting, adapting) such radios for such use.

My spring and early summer 2021 has been pretty full with personal travel, so I haven't had much time to do the many experiments and projects I have planned. RadioMirror is one project that I will be working on soon. Stay tuned!

But wait... there's more! Perhaps "RadioMirror 2021" isn't quite so conceptual after all! See my next article -  RadioMirror, Meet flamp.

Thanks for reading!

Steve Stroh N8GNJ
Bellingham, Washington, USA
Portions Copyright © 2021 by Steven K. Stroh

 

Nice Discussion about RadioMirror by KE9V

I've admired the writing of Jeff Davis KE9V for some time. Jeff "thinks different" and his long-time blog reflects that. I particularly enjoyed Jeff's (fictional) audio series "Cornbread Road" (now, unobtanium, as Jeff stated; you won't find mention of it on Jeff's blog. Jeff is remarkably unsentimental about his previous writings.)

Jeff heaped some praise on my article about RadioMirror:

I’m interested. Very interested. Nothing about this concept is outside current amateur radio capabilities. It doesn’t require some pie-in-the-sky new geo satellite or yet to be imagined software. It could be implemented right now in 2021 if the idea caught some fire…

Thanks for your interest Jeff!

Thanks for reading!
Steve Stroh N8GNJ
Bellingham, Washington, USA
Portions Copyright © 2021 by Steven K. Stroh

 

Updated Interesting and Advanced Projects / Products in Amateur Radio page

I made a number of additions to my web page Interesting and Advanced Projects / Products in Amateur Radio.

There is no change log or diff available - it's intended as a cumulative list of Interesting and Advanced Projects / Products in Amateur Radio.

Thanks for reading!

Steve Stroh N8GNJ
Bellingham, Washington, USA
2021-04-20
Copyright © 2021 by Steven K. Stroh

Purpose Built Amplifier for New Packet Radio

I love Tindie for the interesting electronic products that surface there such as 70cm Power Amplifier (PA) for New Packet Radio:

What makes it special?
It has high power RF switches, a VOX trigger and digital input switch. For the lowest packet error rate you should use the digital 3-5V line connected from the NPR and auto switch the PA.

...

As any experienced Amauteur Radio data communications geek knows, the transmit / receive turnaround time is a critical factor in the overall data rate of a data communications system. If you have to waste time waiting for the transmitter to be up to power, settled on frequency, you are wasting valuable channel time. Ditto for an external amplifier, unless you can signal it just as fast as the native transmitter, which is the "digital 3-5V line" the builder refers to.

New Packet Radio is a very interesting area of experimentation for me (I have several but haven't yet started experimenting). From their page:

NPR (New Packet Radio) is a custom radio protocol, designed to transport bidirectional IP trafic over 430MHz radio links (ham radio frequencies 420-450MHz). This protocol is optimized for "point to multipoint" topology, with the help of managed-TDMA.

Bitrate is 50 to 500kbps (net, effective bitrate), depending on the RF bandwidth chosen.

The radio modem is cheap (~80$) and home-made, with a 433MHz ISM module inside (flexible enough to be tuned over the whole 420-450MHz band). The modem is connected locally with Ethernet, therefore no specific software is needed on PC.

The modem is easy to build and reproduce.

You can add a DMR radio amplifier in order to achieve 20W radio power or more.

The main usage is an extension of HSMM - Hamnet - AREDN networks.

All the project is open-source : hardware, software, protocol specification.

...

Slightly bad news about this new amplifier - its power output of 38 dBm is 6.3 watts.

Worse news - apparently the builder has no plans to ship to the US.

More on New Packet Radio in the coming months, including my personal experimentation at N8GNJ.org.

Thanks for reading!

Steve Stroh N8GNJ
Bellingham, Washington, USA
2021-03-23

 

The Puget Sound Amateur Radio TCP/IP Network (Circa 1995)

(This was originally published on N8GNJ.org, and copied here; SuperPacket is now my "big picture of Amateur Radio" blog for articles like this - see About SuperPacket.)

 

This is the paper I wrote for the 1995 Digital Communications Conference. At the time I wrote this, the network was very active and it was the envy of the country for having not just one, but several 9600 bps bit-regenerative repeaters on the air, and running TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol / Internet Protocol) over them. I've cleaned this up for the blog format and removed out of date contact information.

Unfortunately, as time moved on, space on the US West NewVector cell sites became precious, and our sponsors in the US West NewVector Amateur Radio club moved on other companies and we had to remove the repeaters. The last bit regenerative 9600 bps repeater, on 146.98 MHz on Mt. Baldi fell victim to a "sneak attack" because its "coordination" with the Western Washington Amateur Repeater Association (WWARA) lapsed. The moment the coordination lapsed, WWARA gave the "coordination" for 146.98 to yet another "ego box" voice repeater. To this day, forcing the unique 146.98 9600 bps data repeater off the air is one of the stupidest things I've ever witnessed in Amateur Radio. For that reason I have a very dim view of the utility of "frequency coordination" for Amateur Radio in general, and the WWARA in particular.

I still have one of the UHF repeater systems from one of the US West NewVector sites in my shop. The UHF repeaters were rock-solid UHF Motorola Pulsars (if memory serves) which were the radios used for the old AT&T "Improved Mobile Phone Service", the precursor to cellular mobile telephony. Pulsars were a great choice because they were cheap (to them), well understood by the US West NewVector Amateur Radio Club members and thus easily modified for "flat audio" needed for 9600 bps Frequency Shift Keying (FSK), they were designed for long duty cycles (no fans needed) and they were designed for full duplex. The TNCs were MFJ-1270s with the TAPR 9600 bps modem with the bit-regent adapter. The computers were... whatever we could Frankenstein together in 1995. I remember going to a (then rare) computer surplus dealer called "Puter Parts to put together one computer on a tight budget. My personal station for accessing the Eastside repeater in Issaquah, WA was a Tekk 2 watt radio with an 11-element yagi pointed at the repeater, a Gracilis PackeTwin with a Kantronics 9600 bps modem, and sexy looking surplus industrial PC.

What was remarkable then, and has only now been achieved in the past five years or so with AREDN and HamWAN, is that this network was completely interoperable with the Internet. Unlike Packet Radio, the TCP/IP implementations we used (thank you KA9Q) were able to operate at 9600 bps, and we could send email from a user station on the network to an Internet email user, and vice versa. What made it work was that the router at the Internet Service Provider talked at "Internet speed" to other email hosts, and at "packet radio speed" to the network, and buffered between the two networks.

My experience with this network was formative for me. On the basis of "knowing" TCP/IP I was able to qualify for my first Network Administration job because it required knowledge of TCP/IP, which was then pretty rare. This article was the first major piece I wrote for publication. After this I wrote some articles for the TAPR Packet Status Register (PSR) newsletter, and (briefly) was the PSR Editor. Shortly after that, I began writing a column for Boardwatch Magazine about Wireless Internet Access, and thus began my writing career.

Abstract

The Puget Sound Amateur Radio TCP/IP Network (also known as WETNET, the Washington Experimenter’s Tcp/ip NETwork), centered in the Seattle, Washington metropolitan area, has built an extremely functional packet radio network based on TCP/IP networking and cellular RF techniques. The network encompasses more than eighteen separate Local Area Networks, an estimated 200 users, four 9600 baud bit regenerative repeaters, and a full time Internet gateway. This paper is intended to provide an overview of an operational Amateur Radio TCP/IP network.

A Frequently Asked Question is “Why TCP/IP? Can’t you do everything with regular packet radio that you can do with TCP/IP?” The answer is... somewhat, but not really. A key feature about Amateur Radio implementations of TCP/IP is that its various capabilities are built in- you don’t have to combine dissimilar systems to do mail forwarding, file transfers, provide Packet Bulletin Board System (PBBS) services, multi-connect chat sessions, multiple ports, etc.- “It’s (all) in there”. A typical TCP/IP station can do:

• file transfers (including binary files)
• keyboard to keyboard (chat, telnet)
• finger (display short text files)
• operate as a very capable Packet Bulletin Board System
• operate as a very capable Net/ROM, TheNET, Xl J node, etc.
• accept multiple connections from AX.25, Net/ROM, and other TCP/IP stations
• access multiple ports, including modem, RS-232, terminals, and Ethernet connections
• electronic mail
• automatic routing
• ping (test link integrity)
   

These operations are simultaneous, since the TCP/IP software is written to multitask. The capabilities outlined above are only a subset of TCP/IP’s capabilities.

Some Background on Amateur Radio TCP/IP

A complete discussion of all of the various TCP/IP utilities and capabilities is beyond the scope of this paper, but a few deserve some discussion. One of the most interesting capabilities of Amateur Radio TCP/IP is e-mail. Since each TCP/IP station can send and receive e-mail, there cannot be a “choke point” in the network for message traffic- each TCP/IP user has the ability to send e-mail to any other user from their station. This was a much appreciated feature after having been through “PBBS (Packet radio Bulletin Board System) Forwarding Battles”, where certain PBBS Sysops wouldn’t forward to other PBBS Sysops. With the added capability of a mailing list- being able to forward a single message to multiple recipients, e-mail made PBBS’, and their problems, almost irrelevant. TCP/IP users have the capability to participate in PBBS forwarding, and can “translate” PBBS messages to e-mail messages, and vice-versa.

Being able to add multiple ports easily is liberating. TCP/IP users can gateway between multiple ports, and this capability is used to provide redundant routes, and to provide network access to remote Local Area Networks whose users cannot access other parts of the network directly.

A TCP/IP station can effectively service AX.25 users by providing the capabilities of a PBBS, a network node, a “chat node” , and much more to AX.25 users.

Amateur Radio TCP/IP authors have traditionally (begun by Phil Karn KA9Q) made all source code, (written in C) freely available. If you want to add a new feature, or fix a bug, the source code is available, and several Puget Sound TCP/IP operators have made good use of this to add features and fix bugs, and contribute back to the code pool.

Network Operating System (NOS) was the name that KA9Q gave to his “second generation” of Amateur Radio TCP/IP software (the first was named NET). Since NOS was released, there have been numerous offshoots of NOS, including JNOS, TNOS (JNOS and TNOS were variants of NOS), and others In this paper, NOS is used interchangeably with the term “Amateur Radio TCP/IP Software”.

It is important to remember that “Amateur Radio” TCP/IP is completely interoperable with “commercial”, or “wired” TCP/IP. TCP/IP was enhanced to make use of Amateur Radio just as it was to make use of satellite links, other networking systems, and modems.

Typically, the Switches do not offer any “user functions” and only handle routing and other network functions. If a user function is enabled, it is typically routed to other systems in the network. This may change as the Switches are converted to Linux.

Several LANs have been formed by multi-ported stations that access a repeater and a 2m simplex frequency. Network users have gradually adopted the cellular telephone approach of using low power and a low RF profile, and thus are able to reuse frequencies.

Typically, the multi-ported station forms the center of a simplex LAN. Any stations joining the LAN are encouraged to be within good DCD (Data Carrier Detect) range of the other stations on the LAN. This keeps overall performance on the LAN reasonably high, despite the inevitable collisions and hidden transmitters resulting from simplex operation. 

The network is linked full time to the Internet through a Network Switch at the premises of one of the largest Internet Service Providers in the Seattle area. The primary use of the gateway is to allow participation in the global Converse Bridges. Amateur Radio TCP/IP users can also telnet, FTP (File Transfer Protocol), etc. to Internet hosts, as long as the user has a good connection to the network so the Internet system doesn’t time-out from long delays.

The group makes extensive use of subnetting- the third “octet” of the Amateur Radio TCPAP IP address is specific to a particular LAN. For example, 44.24.103 .xxx is an IP address for the 220 1200 baud repeater, and 44.24.101 .xxx is an IP address for the 147.60 simplex LAN. RIP (Routing Information Protocol) is used to propagate routes throughout the network.

Operational

A typical user station consists of a 386 PC using a Tekk KS-900 UHF radio with a beam, an AEA PK96 or MFJ1270 TNC with TAPR 9600 baud modem. The favored 2m 9600 baud radio is a modified GE MVP. The TCP/IP software of choice is the JNOS (WG7J). It is not uncommon to for the NOS PC to be configured as a “router” for other PC’s in the household via serial or Ethernet connections to a second PC running “commercial" TCP/IP software, often with a graphical user interface- Windows Winsock, OS/2 Warp, or Xwindows on Linux.

AX.25 users are welcome to connect to any TCP/IP station, both to browse around on that particular system or be routed to another system on the network. Some user stations and Switches actively encourage AX.25 and telnet connections by having numerous information files, binary files, and BBS areas available, . The group, at present, hasn’t placed a high priority on interconnection between AX.25 PBBS forwarding and Net/ROM -type networking. There is limited connectivity between local PBBS systems and TCP/IP users through a TCP/IP to PBBS gateway which transfers PBBS messages via e-mail. Personal PBBS messages are sent privately, and PBBS bulletins are sent via a mailing list.

Setup of TCP/IP for the first time has traditionally been a problem. The group has developed a JNOS setup disk, which includes all executable and configuration files necessary to get JNOS up and running. It includes a customized setup program which prompts the user for IP address, callsign, and other particulars, and then customizes the AUTOEXEC.NOS startup file, creates directories, and installs files as appropriate. From all accounts, the disk is working well in getting TCP/IP newcomers on the air.

The Puget Sound Amateur Radio TCP/IP Group

Early members of the group had been active in other area packet radio groups and had become bumed out from the formal duties of a group, such as holding office, constitutions, dues, newsletters, etc. A deliberate, conscious decision was made that this group would remain informal in order to concentrate on technical and other innovative lack-of- management techniques. When funding has been needed for repairs or new equipment, money is donated by members of the group. This arrangement has worked relatively well, but the group did recently decide to get “slightly less disorganized” by requestingvolunteers for Keeper of the Notes, Keeper of the List of Projects, and Keeper of the Shekels.

The group communicates primarily through a mailing list. Members of the group that wish to pose a question, comment on a previous posting, or share information send a single message to the list, and that message is automatically propagated. If a user’s connectivity is good, messages from the list can be delivered in minutes. Mailing list functions have been automated using Majordomo mailing list server software on a Linux system.

The group meets monthly on a weeknight evening. In keeping with its informal nature, meetings are “moderated” only to the point of “collision avoidance”. There is usually plenty to discuss, and formal presentations are rare. Any “burning issues” have typically been discussed on the mailing list prior to the meeting, and there are only a few “reports”. The group has a small advertisement in the local “Computer Paper” which draws in a few lapsed hams and technically curious non-hams.

An ongoing effort is to write effective documentation. Those involved in the documentation effort are enthusiastic about the potential of using the World Wide Web (WWW, or Web) to distribute information. Articles can be distributed as they are created, and updated individually. Web pages, being composed of ASCII text, can easily be distributed as e-mail, or printed from a Web browser. Using Web pages also enables other groups worldwide to easily access the group’s information. The group will support Web pages on the Internet gateway (typical graphically rich Web pages), and a well connected RF site in the network (primarily text Web pages). The group’s current Internet Web page is located at:

http://wetnet.wa.com/ (no longer online, was not saved into the Internet Archive)

Future goals and projects

• Enhancing the reliability of the overall network is a high priority
• Expand high speed TCP/IP links to other areas in the Pacific Northwest, especially Vancouver and Victoria, British Columbia and Portland, Oregon.
• Implement several 56 KBPS and higher links
• Replace NOS with Linux at all Network Switches
• Increased use of Linux and other TCP/IP capable systems
• Contribute to the forthcoming TAPR TCP/IP book
• Sponsor a TAPR Annual Meeting and/or an ARRL Digital Communication Conference Accommodate increased use of PC’s, Macs, Amigas, and Unix systems running their native implementations of TCP/IP
• Aggressively test and implement new radio-based routing techniques as they are developed

Conclusion

TCP/IP works very well for Amateur Radio networking. It has been a satisfying learning experience to get it running and keep it functioning. The results are well worth the effort expended.

The group would enjoy hearing from Amateur Radio TCP/IP users around the country and the globe that have implemented Internet access to their Amateur Radio Networks.

For those that are able, wouldn’t it be more interesting to use our “radio” computers to participate in mailing list discussions such as NOSBBS, NETSIG, and others? There is no reason not to if your system has adequate connectivity to the Internet.

References

Steve Stroh N8GNJ (old contact info removed) for questions on the Puget Sound Amateur Radio TCP/IP Group,

Ken Koster N7IPB (old contact info removed) for questions on the Puget Sound Amateur Radio TCP/IP Network,

Terry Conboy N6RY (old contact info removed) for questions on the US West NewVector Amateur Radio Group and the Cellular Base Station systems.

The most complete book on Amateur Radio TCP/IP is NOSintro, subtitled TCP/IP of Packet Radio, An introduction to the KA9Q Network Operating System by Ian Wade G3NRW, copyright 1992 by Dowermain Ltd., ISBN l-897649 00-2. NOSintro is available from the ARRL.

A good FTP site for downloading Amateur Radio TCP/IP software fi-om the Internet is:

ftp.ucsd.edu/hamradio/packet/tcpip (no longer online, was not saved into the Internet Archive)

The mailing list for Puget Sound Amateur Radio TCP/IP Network users is:

(old list email address removed)

My thanks to the users and builders of the Puget Sound Amateur Radio TCP/IP Network -  it’s not a network without users to use it. It’s been quite a ride, and we’re “finally having fun yet”. I’d especially like to thank (Ken Koster) N7IPB, (Bob Donnell) KD7NM (SK), (Ren Roderick) WA7QFR (now K7JB), (Don Werts) N7NKJ (SK), and (Peter Dahl) WA7FUS for inviting me into the group.