If you’re a licensed radio amateur you probably studied (or glossed over) a bit about packet radio in preparation for your exam. Packet is one of the many digital modes available to you. To play you will need a radio, a terminal ( usually a computer) and some intelligence to convert the rather irritating sound of the packet bursts into text. And lets not forget the cables to tie everything together.
We will assume you have a VHF radio and a computer. The next difficult question is what to do about the intelligence? You have two choices basically. One would be a hardware approach and the other would be a software approach. Actually you may need some hardware to go with the software approach. And if you are lucky enough to have purchased one of the radios available with a built in TNC you are about 95% there.
So lets say you have all the gear you need. Next you will need some software. There are some $100 packages but there are good free packages. We recommend the free.
And now that you have your station up and running, what next? Well check out the Activities page.
Thanks for taking a look. If this is something you want to do, continue to check out the resources on these pages and/or post a question(s.) We will be happy to help!
