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Comment by jacobmarble | Hacker News Reader

> Maybe integrate a TNC Modem with KISS interface? (I am not sure if that is worth the effort)

This makes me sad.

Several years ago, I ran a packet radio / AX.25 server, and used it to hop around Southern California, Mexico, Oregon, Nevada. It was super fun, but there were very few peers to actually chat with.

I used the KISS interface on my KPC-3 to also run a Zork server from a Raspberry Pi -- anyone could login and play Zork, and the state was persisted, so you could logoff and continue later. So much fun, so few visitors.

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I’m working on this currently myself. Seems as good a thing to do with a packet node as any. I’m following in the footsteps here:

https://www.richardosgood.com/posts/how-to-setup-a-raspberry...

https://www.kevinhooke.com/2021/04/12/running-an-ax25-netrom...

I’ll be surprised if anyone ever hits my node but me. Fun anyway!

Here's where I left my WIP in 2015.

https://github.com/jacobmarble/pytnc

Link 404s for me.

I believe this repo is private. GitHub uses a 404 for that instead of a 401 or other options.

This is mine:

https://github.com/pe1rrr/packet-scriptlets/tree/main/games

Yeah I miss packet also. We used to have long chats on the local BBS and in the monitor window sometimes. And I'd hop all over the country and sometimes even via satellites.

But APRS totally killed packet :'( Now it's just a dumb positioning service that nobody interacts with, they just leave it on auto mode.

I wonder if APRS hadn't happened, would faster packet modes have continued to be developed? The problem was that 9600 was fast enough for APRS so nobody cared about making a faster mode.

I recall it differently. I ran a packet radio bbs when that was very active. What really killed it was the availability of internet for everyone. Usage just faded. As a result of this fading, efforts to build high speed uhf backbones faded away.

True that had a lot to do with it too. But I remember all the buzz around APRS when it came around.. I never really understood it, if all you're doing is putting a little flag on a map you're not really communicating. And as a privacy advocate I really try to prevent this very thing :P

But some people really loved it and in my area in Europe it absorbed all the buzz around packet. At that point the internet had already been around for a while but packet was still being used. I guess it depends on the region too.

These days there is actually a movement to provide a high-speed backbone microwave net independent of the internet with emergencies in mind. The idea is for it to replace all the internet-based repeater links for DNR, Brandmeister etc It's called hamnet and it's pretty active in the Netherlands and Germany.

https://hamnetdb.net/map.cgi

I love APRS. The big deal for me is being able to not just hit a repeater, but 2 or 3. Now my 5 watt hand held can reach out of the back county when I'm hiking and actually get somewhere. Bonus that there is a gateway between APRS and SMS.

Yeah, you can drive around and show the world where you are, but using it to write SMS messages when cell reception doesn't exist is awesome.

I don't know about everyone, but if I'm driving around with it on it is so I can see where I get coverage and where I don't. I have to use and test so I know it works when I want to communicate, but overall I'm not a ham to be social.

Early in my packet days, I recall there being packet nodes that would forward you through the internet to other places around the world. That didn't make sense to me, as part of the fun was to require very little infrastructure.

I wasn't involved in packet before the internet, but I was involved in amateur radio back then. From my view, the internet and mobile phones displaced a lot of general interest in this hobby.

> From my view, the internet and mobile phones displaced a lot of general interest in this hobby.

Absolutely. The whole "You can talk to people all over the world with this" lost a lot of shine when the internet happened :)

This discussion brings back fond memories of watching the “slow scan TV” over packet radio ever so slowly rendering low res images of a family we used to talk to in the US from Australia on my dads rig with his 60ft antenna out the back. This was the early 1990s before the Internet was a thing. We ended up travelling to meet that family in Texas in 1994.

I recall in Texas there was some ham repeaters that patched you into the local phone network using DTMF, but can’t recall exactly what it was called. Phone calls in Australia at the time were costly so it was really a novelty.

SSTV was not packet actually. It was more of a semi-analog fax mode. It was used by news agencies at the time to send press photos and weather images across HF.

Packet was really multipoint packet switched like the internet using AX25 which was an adaptation of the X.25 protocol. Pretty similar to TCP/IP. You could even run TCP/IP over AX25 using various "NOS" programs. I used JNOS but most of the time I just used plain AX25 with SP.

They’ve explicitly made it illegal for anything to go faster or wider, which is the core of the problem.

The ARRL is so incompetent, overly concerned with their own elections and never interested in pursuing changes that would actually allow for the hobby to grow into the 21st century. Proud non-member.

Oh we don't have this issue in Europe where I'm based. Faster is possible, it was just that 9600 was so sufficient for APRS and the remaining traditional packet community so small that the interest waned.

Though like I said in another post something started up that is not really for end users but more a backbone high speed network: https://hamnetdb.net/map.cgi

And yeah I also tend to not join the national radio associations. I often don't agree with their decisions and they're often more about old guys infighting and resisting change. I'll join the local radio clubs wherever I live for fun meetups but I leave the politics out of it.

This is not true. The ARRL is constantly fighting for the benefit of radio amateurs, and has been doing so for a century.

The FCC recently considered an over-reach, naming removing the limits on signalling rate, which would be a technically incompetent move.

The ARRL is working with Congress to require the FCC to replace the signalling rate limit to one which would use a 2.8 kHz bandwidth, same as SSB.

This was discussed here a short time ago, "Rep. Lesko Introduces Bill to Replace Symbol Rate Limit with Bandwidth Limit"[0].

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34117073

I really adored the TNCs with built-in BBSs. Could leave it on all day, and occasionally check my email. Back when internet at home wasn't really a thing yet (only at university).

It's slightly sad that there isn't a similar ESP32 or Arduino-based stand-alone TNC out there with BBS capability. I know I could dedicate a rPi and direwolf for that purpose, but those feel much more heavy handed than a simple appliance - have to patch the OS, know more about the whole machine etc.

I know that there are KISS-TNCs out there that are pretty good (for APRS), but that's not quite enough for BBSs.

I've been meaning to play with D-Star DD mode on 23cm (1.2 GHz). Supposedly supports native TCP/IP, with Ethernet out from the back of compatible radios.

Not many radios have it, but the IC-9700 does have support.

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