A radio, a TNC or Direwolf, and your first connection.
How packet networks hang together, and the software that runs them.
From a Montreal club in 1978 to today’s software TNCs.
Packet wraps data in AX.25 frames with addressing, error checking and acknowledgement, giving you a real network over radio: keyboard-to-keyboard links, bulletin board systems, mailboxes and multi-hop digipeater paths.
It predates widespread internet access and was built to solve the same problems, which is why it feels familiar. Much of the original activity moved online, but packet is still heavily used for emergency traffic handling, for Winlink, and by operators who simply like it.
BPQ32 and its Linux counterpart LinBPQ are the usual software for running a node or BBS, and will happily link over the internet as well as over the air. Direwolf has largely replaced hardware TNCs for new installations — it is free, it runs on a Raspberry Pi, and it decodes better than most of the boxes it replaced.
At a Glance
- Category
- Digital data
- On the air since
- 1978
- Bandwidth
- About 15 kHz on VHF at 1200 baud
- Speed
- 1200 baud on VHF, 300 baud on HF, 9600 baud where supported
- What you need
- A hardware TNC such as a Kantronics KPC-3+ or a Mobilinkd, or a sound card running Direwolf
- Where to listen
- VHF packet frequencies vary by region — ask locally
Software
- Direwolf (software TNC)
- UZ7HO soundmodem
- BPQ32 / LinBPQ (node and BBS)
- Outpost