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We have received confirmation and callsign for the Virginia Packet Network “club” organization from the FCC. This is the next step towards putting some test gear on the air to begin experimentation. UPDATE May 17, 2016: The FCC has granted our petition for the vanity callsign W4VPN. Graphic courtesy http://www6.flamingtext.com/
Several local hams have taken the step to organize the VAPN as an amateur radio club to better organize the VAPN goals.
March 2, 2016 revision of the VAPN high level block diagram.
More details added to the VAPN block diagram.
Direwolf – What’s not to like The more I learn about the various software demodulating algorithms in the amateur community, the more I like their commitment towards using correlation and other techniques to squeeze a few more good AX.25 frames out of the ether. The Direwolf project appears to be one effort incorporating the lessons … Read more
An initial request for examination has been sent to the facility manager of the primary site candidate for the VAPN. Details forwarded include: A frequency list to provide the other tenants an opportunity to voice their concerns of these freqs or their harmonics; A statement that no tower real estate is needed or desired – … Read more
Bought a Raspberry Pi and two TNC-PI TNCs for consideration as a hilltop remote node.
Lately I’ve been asking local amateurs what they’d like to see in a packet system that might bring them back to packet. A common complaint is the slow speed of packet. HamNet and other Mesh networks are the systems they speak of while sharing their speed-dreams. Packet systems have offered a TCP/IP telnet capability for … Read more
New ideas applied to an old mode help keep Packet Radio relevant in the 21st century.
A well written tutorial about packet radio continues to educate the amateur radio community.
A bit of doodling in Visio yields this initial concept for the Virginia Packet Network. Raspberry Pi?!? Yes that is a Raspberry Pi. No it is not a high reliability, fault tolerant system. Plans for an upgrade are already in the works, but let’s face a very nice fact… the Raspberry Pi is a dirt … Read more
Successful or not, we will record progress on the Virginia Packet Network on this web site to help others decide whether their locale might benefit from a packet node. I usually log ham radio articles and such on my regular blog, www.hamradio.me, but this topic and project are big enough for their own web presence.
