Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site redwood.UUCP
Path: utzoo!utcs!lsuc!pesnta!hplabs!hpda!fortune!redwood!rpw3
From: rpw3@redwood.UUCP (Rob Warnock)
Newsgroups: net.news.stargate
Subject: Re: Stargate Deployment: possibilities
Message-ID: <164@redwood.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 16-Feb-85 02:54:39 EST
Article-I.D.: redwood.164
Posted: Sat Feb 16 02:54:39 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 17-Feb-85 08:43:27 EST
References: <598@ncoast.UUCP>
Organization: [Consultant], Foster City, CA
Lines: 38

+---------------
| ...
| Now, as for alternatives:
| Hamnet sounds like a good idea; someone should try it out.  Can you imagine
| a tiny inews program for a Commodore 64 with an RTTY interface?  :-}
+---------------

I think the hams have leap-frogged you...

[ Technical info below gleaned from net.ham-radio - any mistakes are mine ]

Modern hams are using TAPR boards (Tucson Amateur Packet Radio), with far more
advanced techniques than RTTY, which was typically 75 baud. TAPR runs at 1200
baud (with experimental units already working at 9600), uses the AX.25 packet
protocol (modified X.25). There are a lot of digital repeaters ("digipeaters")
out there already, and you can send packets from the SF Bay Area to San Diego
with only 6 hops (soon to be three). From what I read, the digipeaters tend
to use Xerox 820s, not Commodore 64s. As one writer noted, not in many years
have the hams so clearly fulfilled their charter to "advance the state of the
art", but they're doing it now! Amateur packet radio via low-orbit satellite
is routine (one of the OSCARs has a digipeater of some sort), and they recently
exchanged packets from the U.S. to Europe via low-orbit satellite.

I am seriously considering getting my ham license to get in on this stuff.
They are MOVIN'!!! There are already several regions across the U.S. that
have coordinated packet nets going. I expect a nation-wide amateur net "real
soon now". (Lest I sound too excited, remember I worked for XTEN for a year,
and had gotten all fired up about microwave packet radio before they folded.)

Anybody who is interested further can subscribe to "net.ham-radio".


Rob Warnock
Systems Architecture Consultant

UUCP:	{ihnp4,ucbvax!dual}!fortune!redwood!rpw3
DDD:	(415)572-2607
USPS:	510 Trinidad Lane, Foster City, CA  94404