9600 baud packet is not for me
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- Опубліковано 10 лют 2025
- This was a last minute live stream to share some thoughts on why I am looking at BBS in 2025 and why the 9600 baud packet port did not work out for my use case.
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The format is perfectly viable! It's all about the knowledge! Love hearing your thoughts on the intersection of technology and preparedness!
Thanks, glad you're getting something out of this. More on the way. I appreciate the note.
Widescreen is a much better format.
@@2025_Is_Going_To_Be_Great Yes that's true, but it doesn't bother me much in this case. I'm just interested in what he has to say. The image could just be his TTP icon and I'd be fine with it.
Minimalist production values works fine for me. Thanks for your work!
Great video G! 40 miles with 20w on UHF did not work between us. VHF with the VX-6R through the W7MOT digi-peater is 100% reliable for me now, as is VARA HF 2300 direct. JPEG/JP2 files take too long, don't even attempt it. I check into the BBS a few times daily. Working with outside groups to add digi-peaters in the PHX metro area and beyond. Cha-Say!(Presentations & Bulletins - "Point, Benefit, Impact" "Brief, Timely, Relevant") 73!
Thanks for providing your experience. I'm looking forward to bringing up the VARA FM port as soon as is humanly possible.
I ran a BBS back in 1983. The Restaurant at the End of the Universe. I was getting 50-70 calls a day on my Apple //e with a 300 baud Hayes Micro-modem. Heck, for the type of info - text - 300 baud was fine. It wasn’t until we were copying (stealing) programs that we wanted 1200/9600. That said, your whole series on the BBS is fantastic and I want you to get as technical as possible. Get into the weeds! I’m trying to copy (steal) your ideas for my own BBS in Illinois.
Steel away. That's the goal. We need to own and stand up these systems as private citizens again. Glad to hear from a former sysop from the glory days of 300 baud over the telephone. You had quite the board. What print publications did you publish your BBS on?
@ none. A good friend ran Warloc’s Castle. Heck he made Time Magazine. We had different focus at the time - his was more Anarchic Cookbook - I was a kid - my whole goal was breaking copy protection on programs (games) and sharing them. I gave him games, he let me post my number on his BBS. He actually gave me my first 9600 modem back in 1984. Made point to point file transfer so much faster than the 12hrs to copy 143K at 300! How times have changed. BTW: I earn my living as a network engineer. You hate the internet and I get paid to keep it working!
@holdfastjoe8841 I started my career back at Southwestern Bell. I actually built a few ISPs for customers, basically Cisco routers with a bunch of PRIs for dial up access. I started a WiFi ISP back in the 802.1B days. Lost my ass $$$ wise when DSL/Cable modems swept through my area.
@@jeffsjeepandhamshack Thanks for sharing this story. It's amazing how we all got started. What a great time to be a kid. I started out trying to be hacker and phone phreaker around 1995. In fact, my first real tech job was at the University of California after breaking into the student time sharing machine and harvesting 8,000 student accounts. They offered my two options: expulsion or work for them. I went with the latter. Cheers!
@@TheTechPrepper btw: I’m stuck in Benson Az right now, waiting on a camper axel to be shipped from Indiana. I’m working via Starlink, but in free time trying to get VARA running on an M1 MacBook Air. I’ve got a window laptop with me, but the I like to do things the hard way.
Love that you're doing this. New to amateur radio and just getting started with digital modes - but eager to follow your progress. Keep up the good work.
Welcome to the hobby. Like everything in life, you get out of it, what you put into it. Good luck with your journey.
Where I've seen the best 9600 baud use is for club/linked systems - they run 9600baud on point to point radios with yagis and then 1200 baud to users. Speeds up relaying from node to node to node but since it is fixed and using directional antennas between the nodes in a chain or ring etc it performs better.
Thanks for bringing this up. Several people made the same point regarding the use of 9600 baud packet for the intra-node linking. Great idea.
Very useful comments on point to point (w/ yagi) for 9600.
Love these off the cuff videos. They are packed with information. Keep up the good work!
Thanks, Sean. I'm finding that's a good format to do "brain dumps" before jumping to the next thing on my list.
Right to the point ,organized ideas. No need for high production
It feels strange running without notes or a general structure to follow. This one was just a last minute commentary based on ~70 days of running a BBS with actual users. I wanted to share some thoughts before moving onto the next dozen things on my list. I am glad it was well received. Cheers.
This style of video is perfect IMO. I hope the 3 major planned videos come to fruition. Great topics. I am very interested to see the results of the RDF.
I am excited for these videos, too. The DF and get home videos are the ones I'm really interested in as they should answer these questions for myself: "Can the average person actually find me?" and "Can I really make it home while covering a non-trivial distance?"
I don't always get the technical end of things that you are doing, but enjoy your working towards the end goal. I don't need fancy in your videos, and I like that you are able to provide updated content on a consistent basis despite working for a living. Keep up the great work!
73,
Brett K5WXP
Thanks for the feedback. I am trying to find a balance of technical, but not too technical. In general, I try to focus on the "why" of what I am doing and sharing it through a practical lense. 73
I'm looking forward to getting into digital modes, but have been dragging my feet because of its complicated nature. Also, RF direction finding is very interesting. That should be a good video. Keep up the great content! Thank you 👍
It's worth it, but it requires a little bit of patience to get into. Good luck!
Gaston, you've covered a lot of interesting territory today with good topics for the future. I like NVIS, DF/Fox Hunting, VARA, and BBS.
Lumping together NVIS and BBS pushes me towards ATAK. ATAK offers GUI for the end users, but it's largely text driven on the backend to reduce bandwidth to match available bandwidth on HF and VHF. The rub is civilian versions of ATAK are limited to only work on cellphone and wifi networks. Military versions utilize RF via HF, VHF, and UHF.
As to DF, I believe the right people with the right equipment can do a good job at DF, but few people outside of the military and some government entities have the right equipment. I suspect two fixed DF stations directing mobile units would be able to track NVIS quite effectively. Once line-of-sight VHF and higher mobile DF equipment becomes essential.
Avoiding being effectively located via DF I believe will require a comm plan that varies times, frequency, and location.
Only government entities for the most part, will be able to deploy arial DF equipment.
In considering the DF problem as related to NVIS at HF with larger antennas that take time to deploy, I think one solution is cheap throwaway antennas made from aluminum fence wire is a viable solution. Deploy your antenna. Do your radio business and move out within 3-5min. leaving the antenna behind.
Of course, if it's a survival situation and you are not coordinating through electronic communication, it becomes easier to stay off the radar, but you are only surviving as "one" at that point with those you can physically contact.
ATAK will work over any multicast IP network. If you can present that interface to the EUD via radio, it will work. I've also used Gotenna Pro UHF/VHF mesh radios to carry TAK data with good results.
Unfortunately, ATAK does not feel like a great fit for what I am trying to solve. I considered it as the basis for my EmComm Tools platform several years ago. I looked at the plug-in architecture, but there were too many foundation elements missing. In the end, a full Linux tablet (FZ-M1) came on top given all the offgrid capabilities that I needed that could not be served by a phone or ATAK. For example, I will be working on a next generation integration for VOACAP, but would never dream of trying to port the engine over to Android or iOS. In the end, if you have a Baofeng, a small tablet/computer and DigiRig, you get a lot more power. This is my opinion of course. Good luck with your efforts on the ATAK front. Lastly, I am planning on limiting all phone use to just voice and text messages, with zero of the mainstream apps installed due to the direction that tracking and AI is going.I will be looking at running PostmarketOS on a 10-year old phone. Also, I killed my cell data package 7 months back. It's been great not having Internet access on the go.
@Porty1119 I am vaguely familiar with the TAK platform you are talking about. I have not heard of anyone integrating those VHF/UHF radios with HF radios, cellphones, and traditional wifi computer devices. If that is what you are doing, you need to publish something on the subject.
It is that full integration across all RF bands, networks, and equipment that military and government versions of ATAK accomplish in their mesh networks.
The problem the military struggles with is maintaining secure networks that allow local control for members to enter the mesh network and form groups. Once you give local control the possibilities for compromising security rises exponentially, but in a fluid and highly dynamic battlefield environment directed by strategic corporals flexibility in communication elements and groups can be paramount to success.
So also can compromise in communication security lead to major battlefield failures.
@@TheTechPrepperYou fought Windows and finally gave into Satan-Gates' platform for VARA and JS8Call that also had undesirable aspects.
I shouldn't complain. After following the war in Gaza, I've become convinced that the best solution for me as a bachelor is to stay off the radar in a SHTF survival situation, which may mean giving up all RF and eating field rats, squirrels, pigeons, and rabbits until I can locate myself to a better situation.
I just pray that our reprieve in the political system by God's grace leads to real reforms at the individual level that secures liberty for 15-20yrs or more, and not a backlash with a vengeance in 4yrs. That could lead to civil war that at 65yo I would want no part.
By God's grace may our hearts turn to God as a people that reason and peace may prevail.
@@vironpayne3405 I have it 100% integrated on the voice and limited data side (minus HF, but adding an HF radio as a ROIP resource is really trivial). We have conventional P25 radios integrated with SATCOM and PTToC, as well as the option of PTT and messaging from a PC acting as a dispatch console.
The data side has been a lot trickier. I've spent a bunch of time hammering at using the native IP packet data functionality incorporated into many digital radios and I'm still not convinced that it's the right approach due to how chatty and data-intensive many modern applications are. There is an APRS plugin for TAK that seems interesting, but the AX.25 packet waveform lacks forward error correction. I'm also looking at 900MHz HaLoW mesh radios; effective range isn't great for wide-area work but would be more than adequate for inter/intrateam and on-site stuff. Backhaul it over SATCOM and the shorter inter-node range becomes less of a downside.
Then there's Gotenna Pro - awesome product, performs very well, but the unit cost is high and the ecosystem is somewhat restrictive. I'd like it more if it offered some level of user-accessible IP transport, but currently it's limited to TAK or the native application which resembles a stripped-down TAK client.
Back in the day (early 1990s) i ran a BBS running 1200 baud ! Using a Baycom modem on a used government 80286 computer on 2m with a volunteer 70cm backbone ( 70cm radios were rare at least for hams so we used used police Motorola radios) but talk about SLOOOww! we had a blast learning as we went along.
It's great to hear from a former sysop from the good old days. I'm late to the party on this, but it's still very relevant even at these speeds. Thanks for the view and comment.
@TheTechPrepper keep it up , I miss those days! Us old packeteers are all using a mesh network now. We are growing but I'd still like to go back to those days. I lived on a hilltop so I ran several digipeaters off from my tower and the BBS , most of us cobbled together whatever we could use. There's many silent keys now. Back then 2m was so busy that many switched to packet because phone was literally too busy. It was so much fun. I was a young man then. Just have fun and keep on plugging! 73 de N3TGY
Good morning Gaston. As always, definitely appreciate the info
Morning, Steve. It was another last minute stream I'm afraid, but I want to share some info before moving onto the next thing on my plate.
@@TheTechPrepper, you are still pushing out some great content for the community. We know that you have a lot on your plate. Keep your head up and stay focused on the end goal that you have. You are doing awesome work brother.
I appreciate the work you’re putting in here. I’m planning to stand up a similar BBS here soon, although I’ve got a sufficiently powerful server that I can virtualize all the needed operations in one place and even remotely accessible (while the net is still up).
Check out the Modern Ham. He using virtualization for his setup, too. Personally, I like the architecture of using separate hardware and dedicated as it very easy for me to turn any physical hardware into the main BBS. I have a process to sync the full system between all stations nightly. Good luck!
Back in the day in my area, 9600 baud packet was used as a backbone to connect nodes primarily on 220 MHz using Kantronics KPC 9612 dual port TNC's.
You are the third person to raise the use of 9600 baud packet for intra node linking. Using 220 is a good call too given its light use by the community. This is something to consider for future needs as I get more into the forwarding and peering relationships with other BBS systems in the area.
Any information dump from your experiences is worthwhile instruction.
thx for all the infos you are giving us during you journey. looking forward especially to the fox hunting stuff 😊
You're welcome.
I like it when the content is way over my head, it gives me homework.
There will be a test.
One of these days I'll figure how to connect to your BBS. Unfortunately, I'm in Ohio and since I'm only a tech, I'm annoyingly limited (general coming in a month). But this is great stuff. Would be interesting to see a network of linked BBS's across the country at some point.
This is where a General license shines. I had a couple of people connect over VARA HF from the midwest last week. I am starting to look at the peering relationships using forwards on the BBS. This is the next step. Good luck with your upgrade. 73
There’s a bit of packet radio here in Ohio. Check around a bit.
Yep 1200 baud is the best. Regarding VARA FM - you are going to find that distance of VARA FM is not much better than 9600 baud. My suggestion is to use VARA HF on 2m SSB. That will work and will give you an amazing distance on 2m! VARA HF was designed for SSB use so will work just fine on 2m SSB. You won't get the speed that you could get with VARA FM but its still much faster than 1200 baud packet. You can even run it using a vertical antenna vs a yagi. Yes you will get much more distance on a yagi but the downside is that it is directional via omni-directional.
I am a huge fan of SSB, but if we are going to be going for those distances, our group will just use HF. My challenge with SSB is that I do not always have my FT-818 with me due to the size and weight. In practice, 1200 baud packet with an HT works pretty well with the right antenna and position. We tested JS8Call on 2m SSB over a year ago. It worked amazingly well. There were no issues in our terrain pushing 30 to 100 miles. Thanks for the details. Great callout.
Some of the guys in our counties Search and Rescue system had the best plans for failures I've ever seen. They needed more radio expertise in that direction but I couldn't believe what I saw in other areas. I checked to find out the differences in speed for Turbo JS8 and 9600 and was surprised at the general search. It said that Turbo JS8 was 40wpm. The same source said 9600 could do 11,500 wpm . Doesn't seem possible ?
Believe it. This problem exists in every sector.
@@TheTechPrepper When did you receive your 8900 ? Was it new ? Mine was ! N6GRG
Really did not understand the concept of the bulletin board and it's application for non-internet based communications.
This video clarified things for me. I will attempt to set one up so my local contacts can use it as a central gathering place.
Thanks for clarifying things.
Thanks for the feedback. A few people were confused, so I wanted to provide some background on the what and why this morning regarding the Bulletin Board System. Good luck!
I like this format. And I have put a vara hf only BBS n the air the last month.
Congrats on your BBS deployment! Being a sysop requires work. The hardest part is undering the BPQ configuration. Nicely done.
I came into ham radio at the very tail end of packet radio. I remember it though. Watched all the local "servers" shutdown as the Internet was taking off.
It's great that you witnessed some of it. Let's bring it back!
I was playing with BBS systems over HF in the early 80's. These were 45 baud, 5 level, 170 hz shift FSK. Commonly known as RTTY. We were using model 32 teletype machines with paper tape loops to log on and to send pre punched messages. We experimented with 110 baud, 8 level ASCII using model 33 teletype machines, which had very poor performance. The reason is a typical noise impulse over SSB approaches the length of a bit at 110 baud. Packet at 300 baud is going to need a near perfect signal to be useable. You might find that RTTY has higher actual throughput on HF.
VARA is a game changer. It uses state of the art DSP techniques requiring computers that we could only dream of in the 80's.
The free version of VARA will function up to 180bps. $70 might be a little much for someone who just wants to try it out.
Love the content and the level they are pitched at but saying that, I'm a sysadmin. I use VARA for HF Winlink a fair bit and find it the best modem. Unfortunately, other than APRS, packet is dead here in VK land. Put a BBS on the air beaconing and never got a single hit. 73's and appreciate the video.
Thanks! Try HF. You will have much more success. Good luck!
Your "low production" videos are every bit as good as the normal videos.
Glad to hear it, but I do miss the field videos on the action camera.
I love vara, and use it in Tucson. What frequency are you running your vara port.
7.100 USB. Use KT7RUN-7
Great video! BBS over HF in the works? Commodore 64 vet here. Y’all listen to the Tech Prepper. BBS'S are invaluable!
Actually, I have already done a demo showing off 300 baud packet with the (tr)uSDX using a low-to-the-ground antenna deployment. My future video will show off packet and VARA over HF for accessing the BBS. Stay tuned.
I'm surprised there isn't already an open source alternative for vara already. Looks like the issue is mostly the protocol spec doesn't give enough info to go by. Thanks for another great video, Gaston!
There's a new modem called Mercury on GitHub that the Modern Ham put on my radar. It has a lot of the same characteristics as VARA but it's a different modem altogether. However, the author of Mercury states that it will work with existing VARA clients. It's on my to do explore later.
Have you ever explored AREDN. It takes off-the-shelf wifi gear, flashes new firmware and offers up frequencies for amateur use only. Forget super long distances (when they say line of sight, they aren't kidding) but it could make a great local net. Maybe the NVIS could be a branch into a BBS repository on the LAN. My success stories are up to about 6 miles but we have rough terrain and tons of foliage to overcome in PA.
73s
Negative, but I am aware of it. My number one criteria is being able to stay in touch with my group. We are spread over a 5, 10, 50, 100 and 250 mile radius. ARDEN and technologies like Meshtastic simply do not work. If I was in an urban environment, it would be a different story. Go with the tools that work for you and your needs.
Gaston ..... some modes are not for everyone at that moment .... that is why there is so many options available to any Ham =) Later on they may might remember this APP and information that they would be interesting some time in the future .... I have explored many aspects of Ham Radio =) I started the same way as you into cutting edge tech in Ham modes exploration =) Please continue on the area you into develop =)
Yep up the bit rate at distance you lose bits along the way to make it reliable /-) We did use 6 FM meters as a 4800 baud as a state backbone for state ENCOMM Communication in our Hilly terrain ..... but you may look at as a RF gateway RF to RF /-) Keep up the great work my friend =)
5:22 a full-length video would be terrific, and may also increase viewership of your BBS series. Well done!
It's on the works. I just need consolidate the last few months of notes into a structured format. Have a good one. I hope this provided some much needed context on "why a BBS?"
I'm just getting into it, but probably won't go linux any time soon, so I appreciate the Windows-compatible modes. Using stripped-down Windows 10 machine for everything-radio-only. Will incorporate everything I can. Thanks
In my full-length BBS video, I will demonstrate connecting using A Baofeng + DigiRig Lite + Windows 10. That's my $100 use case with the simplest way of getting started. However, I will be using mostly other more powerful examples so that people can see what and how I am doing things in practice. There should be something for everyone in this future video.
We need to figure out how to get the BBS games running over the air. People would probably connect several times a week to play Solar Realms Elite.
There is an entire game scene for people running over-the-air packet BBS stations. I personally tested it, then removed it as I am into this purely for emcomm. There is no reason why it can't be fun. I played Zork as a test early last month.
I suspect that the radio directionnfonding video would get the most views.
On a personal note I would love to see emcomm tools ported to the Linux phone so spend your time there 😂
I think you're right about the the DF video. That project is very much on the back burner in terms of priorities, but I am poking at it a few hours every month. If this was my full time gig, it would be a different story. This is not an easy solve on the phone. There are lots of trade-offs. The challenge is that people have been trained not to pay for software. Everybody wants it, but no one is willing to pay for what it will really cost as this is niche within a niche market. Reality sucks.
I think I'm going to get back in to playing with ARDEN and think I might try adding a BBS on it.
Good luck!
won't the modem negotiate a lower speed automatically based on the quality of the radio connection or the end user has a lower speed capability? that is how modems worked on land lines. sorry if you answer this in the video at some point, I am asking while still watching :) does packet radio require a fixed baud rate not a negotiated one?
You should check out S2 underground, specifically Ghostnet manual it could fit into your plan, etc.
I'm familiar. We use JS8Call heavily.
The best style video. We are here for content, not flash.
More "no flash" content coming to a UA-cam theater near you.
I like the idea of BBS but I’m struggling finding enough info to set it up and a lack of understanding on how to do it
I have your back. I'll explain everything in a 101 video. I just need some time to structure all my notes. I can't wing it like I have done with these point and shoot videos.
Very cool
Probably asking a lot, but would it be possible to have a detailed video on how to setup a minimalist simplex vhf system to get started. Then another detailed video on setting up the most successful setup using the windows based vara modem. I'm not a linux user and run all of my digital coms (winlink, ft8, js8 call) from a windows operating environment. At some point, once you refine the emcon tools, that's a platform I will invest in. For now, I just want to have something in place. Thanks
For the long form BBS video, I plan to show simple setup with the least common denominator: Baofeng + DigiRig + Windows 10. I'll cover my setup, too.
@@TheTechPrepper That's great. Thanx
Video style works for me.
If they know where you are without leaving the car do they still have to get out on foot?
Visual confirmation will be required. They will have to move to foot.
Did I hear correctly, 1/10 wavelength dipole for 40M NVIS and still get up to 300 miles? What power are you outputing for NVIS?
Yes, I have done lots of experiments in the field with plenty of examples on UA-cam. I run between 2.5 and 5 watts.
Just to be clear, the 1/10th wavelength is how high the antenna is above the ground. The dipole antenna still has to be the full wire length to be resonant on 40m
@@MobiusHorizons Yes, I was referring to the height above ground for the deployment. In practice, I have very good success as low at 5 feet off the ground with a traditional 40m dipole. I've shown it many times on the channel using very low power. At the shack, I have it deployed higher at 1/10th of wavelength above ground.
There is a Lora Mesh BBS next to me. Can that be rolled in?
At this point, I have not explored any mesh technologies deeply as there are node nodes in our rural area. Since there is no one to talk to, I can't invest the time to dive into it as there is not practical use out here. However, search the BPQ groups.io list and search for LoRa or Meshtastic and see what you find. I am sure plenty of the other UA-cam channels have covered LoRa.
Gaston l do like the free style format 73
Thanks to both you. I'm not bright enough to figure out fancy cameras, lighting or editing software, so I'm glad to hear that your fine with the old phone and last minute streams. More coming when there's something on my mind. Happy hump day!
Good stuff
Thankss, David. More practical comms coming. Have a good one.
Hello, did you tested already New Packet Radio?
Negative. It requires specialized hardware that is not really great for deployment with larger groups. However, it would be nice to use some existing network-based applications, though.
Q3 60 miles on foot, make sure everyone has a Garmin In Reach!
RR
In 1999 I downloaded my first Linux distro on 9600baud. It was 247mb. Corel Linux :) true!
That is amazing. I cheated using used dialup.
Interesting, personally I wouldn't mind getting more technical. Time to start secondary tech channel? :))))
I do something called "The TTP Nerd Hour" on Buy Me a Coffee where I go very low level. I've done 7 installments so far with another planned for next month.
@@TheTechPrepper Not in a position to pay for the content, hope some of it hits YT eventually?
If you do the fox hunt, get gopros for the hunters and you, either upload multiple videos or splice them together, would be cool to see the full cat and mouse, rather than either one side or an AAR.
That's certainly part of the plan. There will be many cameras involved so that we can a get 360 view of the event. Don't blame if it ends up looking like an old episode of Cops. ;-)
I can get into modern digi, like WL. Older digi, like CW, not so much.
Lol! My CS books and math book were$400-600 I know how you feel
Wow. Inflation suck! That hurts.
The cost of textbooks back then was just a plain rip-off. Even the second hand books were absurdly expensive. A when you decided to sell it off, you didn't get much back. I think the max I ever got back for just one was $20, only for the book store to resell it next turn for hundreds.
Yeah, the college textbook business is a racket. The buy back from the college book store was a scam.
I like VARA
BTW yes slower the better especially with bad weather
If people find the content to TECHIE, it should motivate them to do some research. We live in an instant gratification world 😢
I try to go really deep on the Buy Me a Coffee side with something called "The TTP Nerd Hour" member streams. The stuff on UA-cam is usually more demo-based and touches on the why. I understand that even these are over most people's head. In the end, getting the most out of digital mode capabilities requires hard work to understand the basics with required hands-on experience. Yes, the research is on them. I will continue to focus on the "why" and the "value" that these tools provide hopefully inspire people, but there is a limit to how easy I can make it.
If you don’t stretch your mind, you won’t learn anything.
Buffalo NY got slammed by snow 77-78.
I think most of the region did that year. The CBBS/Chicago was the first BBS software that hit the market. It was developed during the 1978 blizzard that hit Chicago. Calculus also came out of the bubonic plague when Isaac Newton self-isolated.
@TheTechPrepper Newton makes Elon look like W. E. Coyote. Discovered most of his stuff by 26. Then again, he did not go to school where brilliance is knocked down or is over medicated out.
Is anybody here located in Coastal South Orange County, CA? I am Tim KE6QAP DM13DL.
vertical video? WTF?