Re: [ProgSoc] packet radio

[Telford Tendys <telford@nospam.progsoc.uts.edu.au>]

On Sun, Jun 27, 1999 at 07:28:05PM +1000, Victor Rajewski wrote:
> Does anyone know about packet radio?
> 
> What can it do, what sort of equipment is needed, and where can I get
> resources?

My understanding is that it was becoming very popular until legislation was
passed which expressly forbid any wormhole that allowed internet traffic
to route through the radio network so if you run a radio you can only use
it for your own messages, not act as a proxy for general traffic.
UTS used to have a radio club until the above ruling shut down their
transmitter <shrug>.

I'm not sure of all the details involved but the Linux kernel does support
IP over packet radio, you just need suitable computer controlled
transmitter/reciever equipment. These files have some notes:

/usr/src/linux/Documentation/networking/6pack.txt
/usr/src/linux/Documentation/networking/ax25.txt
/usr/src/linux/Documentation/networking/baycom.txt
/usr/src/linux/Documentation/networking/z8530drv.txt

Also the soundcard can be used as a CPU intensive modem for radio usage,
it's about 50 baud or something. I'm told that this can also be used to
talk to deaf people on their TTY devices though I have yet to try it.

The baud rate is generally low but the available range is quite good so
for things like driving around the country with a laptop and radio mounted
in your car, it could be a good way to download email at over-night or
something similar.

	- Tel
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