My AmprNet Gateway Build

 

 

 

 

So I am a long time, Amateur Radio Digital Mode lover, starting for me when I got my Technician ticket in early 1993, immediately jumping into Packet Radio.  It was pleasing to me to turn on my 2 meter radio and hear tones of packet burst all over the band. To my remembrance, packet operated primarily on VHF at 1200 baud for keyboarding with your fellow ham or checking out the latest postings on the local packet bulletin board and on UHF at 9600 baud which I believe we used mainly for backbone runs, like Packet Node connections between towns or parts of towns, which only worked if you had a good line-of-site between the two points.  300 baud Packet and many other digital modes (ex. RTTY) where on HF but I didn't have HF privileges at that time.  I eventually built and deployed an AX25 packet node a little over 10 years ago and started helping John Wiseman (author of bpq and others) along with many other fellow hams, in testing and contributing to the rebuild of his infamous  bpq to work with Windows and Linux, adding more up-to-date features.

 

I was REALLY a happy camper when I got involved with APRS, hearing more packet radio data burst while watching little cars, boats, airplanes and other objects pop up and move around on a line map using Microsoft DOS and then eventually Windows 3.1, using an IBM 286 computer, Radio Shack HTX-242 2M mobile radio and MFJ 1270C TNC and a MFJ 5/8 wave ground plane mounted to a microphone stand out on the apartment patio and driving my now wife crazy LOL.  Kinda telling my age group huh?

Above is a book I found 10 or so years ago that is still available on Amazon about Packet Radio.  Clicking the pic will take you there.  I bought 2 of them because they were on-sale for cheap, 1 just for a read and taking notes to see if I had missed anything, even though I was a heavy user of the mode, and another just to keep for.... well who knows.  It actually has call-signs in it of people I worked via the mode.  That alone brought back memories.  Being released in 1991, I guess it'll make a good collectors item, reference book or just a good read to take you back to the old days.  To me it is still relevant for understanding the basics of Packet Radio.

 

Anyway, enough reminiscing.  Now there was another mysterious part of packet radio I ran across that sort of interested me called AmprNet,  Amateur Packet Radio Network, also called Network 44.  It is a large IP space on the internet reserved for Amateur Radio use.  HERE is a WIKI about it.  I never really understood it or followed through with pursuing it because I wasn't familiar enough with any type of networking, and a lot of the terms at that time were well above my head because, of course, Google did not exist to make it easier to grasp LOL. 

 

    Now that I am much older and have actually worked in the area of networking, the interest in the AmprNet space has been re-sparked and I recently decided to really jump in and create an AmprNet Gateway and start toying with this genre' of Amateur Radio Digital Modes again.  After a lot of research from many websites, (thanks Google, again something we never had back then) and gathering my thoughts and equipment, I have, what I think, is a working system and I am now presenting via this blog what I did to build my gateway machine and connect it to the Ampr Network.  Please Please Please feel free to comment, ask questions or even express corrections because I am far from being a pro at this.  I am still learning.

So lets get started: Gateway Setup