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 October 06, 2002

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Ham Shack 

My Interests in Amateur Radio are Packet and all types of digital communications, Satellite Tracking and Communication. Especially With  the International - Space Station and US Space Shuttle.  

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Welcome to Amateur Radio

WHAT IS PACKET RADIO?

By Larry Kenney, WB9LOZ

A Short History - How it all began

It was in March, 1980, that the Federal Communications Commission approved the transmission of ASCII for Amateur Radio in the United States. That was a year and a half after Canadian hams had been authorized to transmit digital "packet radio", and the Canadians had already been working on a protocol for it. Doug Lockhart, VE7APU, of Vancouver, British Columbia, had developed a device that he called a terminal node controller (TNC). It worked with a modem to convert ASCII to modulated tones and convert the demodulated tones back to ASCII. Doug had also formed the Vancouver Amateur Digital Communications Group (VADCG) and named his TNC the "VADCG board".

Hams here in the U.S. started experimenting with the VADCG board, but in December, 1980, a ham from the San Francisco Bay Area, Hank Magnuski, KA6M, put a digital repeater on 2 meters using a TNC that he had developed. A group of hams interested in Hank's TNC started working together on further developments in packet radio and formed the Pacific Packet Radio Society (PPRS). AMRAD, the Amateur Radio Research and Development Corporation, in Washington, DC became the center for packet work on the east coast, and in 1981 a group of hams in Tucson, Arizona, founded the Tucson Amateur Packet Radio Corporation (TAPR).

Working together these groups developed a modified version of the commercial X.25 protocol called Amateur X.25 (AX.25) and in November, 1983, TAPR released the first TNC in kit form, the TAPR TNC1. In 1984, a great deal of packet experimentation was done, software for packet bulletin board systems was developed, and packet radio started becoming more and more popular all across the U.S. and Canada.

Packet Radio was one of the major developments to hit the world of Amateur Radio and thousands of hams soon caught the "packet bug". If you're wondering what it's all about and why so many people got so excited about it, continue reading. You're about to find out.

Packet Radio - What It's All About

Packet seems to offer something different from other facets of Amateur Radio, yet it can be used for everything from a local QSO to a DX contact thousands of miles away, for electronic mail, message transmission, emergency communications, or just plain tinkering in the world of digital communications. It presents a new challenge for those tired of the QRM on the low bands, a new mode for those already on FM, and a better, faster means of message handling for those on RTTY. Packet is for the rag chewer, the traffic handler, the experimenter, and the casual operator.

A ham can get involved very easily with relatively small out-of-pocket expenses. All you need is a transceiver, a computer, and a TNC or special packet modem and software. A two-meter rig is preferred, since that's where most of the packet activity is located. You probably already have the rig and the computer, so all you need to buy is the TNC, which costs just over $100, or the special modem and software, which sell together for about $50.

The TNC, the Terminal Node Controller, is a "little black box" that's wired between the computer and the radio. It contains software for controlling the outgoing and incoming transmissions for your station and a modem that converts the data from the computer into AFSK tones for transmission and changes the tones that are received by the radio into data for the computer. The TNC modem works much like a modem that's used to connect your computer to the telephone lines. It's a simple matter of wiring up a plug and a couple of jacks to become fully operational on packet. If you prefer to use the small modem instead of a TNC, you'll need special software for your computer to replace the software in the TNC. Either method works equally well.

Packet is communications between people either direct or indirect. You can work "keyboard to keyboard" or use electronic mailboxes or bulletin board systems to leave messages. Due to the error checking by the TNC, all of it is error free, too. (That is, as error free as the person at the keyboard types it!) As the data is received it's continuously checked for errors, and it isn't accepted unless it's correct. You don't miss the information if it has errors, however, because the information is resent until it is correctly received.

The data that is to be transmitted is collected in the TNC and sent as bursts, or packets, of information, hence the name. Each packet has the callsign or address of who it's going to, who it's coming from and the route between the two stations included, along with the data and error checking. Since up to 256 characters can be included in each packet, more than three lines of text can be sent in a matter of a couple of seconds. There is also plenty of time between packets for several stations to be using the same frequency at the same time.

If all of this sounds confusing, don't let it bother you, because the TNC or special packet software does everything for you automatically. Packet radio might seem very confusing at first, but in a day or two you'll be in there with the best of them. In this series I'll be telling you all about packet radio - how you get on the air and how to use it. We'll talk about the little black box, the TNC, and tell you about all its inner-most secrets. We'll discuss mailboxes, bulletin board systems, and the packet networks that allow you to work stations hundreds, even thousands, of miles away using just a low powered rig on 2 meters, 220 or 450. The world of packet radio awaits you

"Ham"

"Ham: a poor operator. A 'plug.''

That's the definition of the word given in G. M. Dodge's The Telegraph Instructor even before radio. The definition has never changed in wire telegraphy. The first wireless operators were landline telegraphers who left their offices to go to sea or to man the coastal stations. They brought with them their language and much of the tradition of their older profession.

In those early days, spark was king and every station occupied the same wavelength--or, more accurately perhaps, every station occupied the whole spectrum with its broad spark signal. Government stations, ships, coastal stations and the increasingly numerous amateur operators all competed for time and signal supremacy in each other's receivers. Many of the amateur stations were very powerful. Two amateurs, working across town, could effectively jam all the other operators in the area. When this happened, frustrated commercial operators would call the ship whose weaker signals had been blotted out by the amateurs and say "SRI OM THOSE #&$!@ HAMS ARE JAMMING YOU."

Amateurs, possibly unfamiliar with the real meaning of the term, picked it up and applied it to themselves in true "Yankee Doodle" fashion and wore it with pride. As the years advanced, the original meaning has completely disappeared.

Hams keep skills tuned up, just in case

Radio operators stay on the alert

By Lisa Kocian, Globe Staff Correspondent, 1/17/2002

If the world ever threatens to come to an end, Joe Heck is the man to know.

His Wrentham house is on high ground, where he has a generator, a private well, and radio communication equipment that in a pinch he can operate using either a car or plain old batteries as a power source.

Heck is an amateur radio operator, a ham, just as a hobby - until a crisis comes along.

One of the main draws of amateur radio, said Heck during an interview at his home, is the self-sufficiency. Just as survivalists can build a fire without matches or tell directions by the night sky, amateur radio operators usually know how to tap into a generator or build a makeshift antenna.

(Heck's request for a taller antenna behind his house, which would give him even more reliable contact with the outside world, is before the Planning Board now. Heck, who works as an independent computer consultant, was a Planning Board member until last week, when he resigned to resume his previous position on the Finance Committee.)

For Heck and many others, being a ham operator is much more than a pastime. Massachusetts and many of its local governments recognize that, too, coordinating hundreds of amateur radio operators who can deliver communications in an emergency. Ham networks are tied to the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency, which has its headquarters in Framingham.

The list of standard threats used to start with a flood, ice storm, hurricane, or other natural disaster knocking out traditional communications; a terrorist attack might have seemed out of place on that list just a few months ago. After Sept. 11, Heck and scores of other hams were asked to go to New York to help organizations such as the American Red Cross manage their communications while phone lines were down.

But even before the September catastrophe, Heck was arguing to town officials that Wrentham was not properly prepared for an emergency. Yes, the town had an emergency management director as required by state law, but radio equipment was not properly maintained and the town wasn't taking full advantage of drills and the training available, said Heck.

In response, on Sept. 4 the Board of Selectmen set up an emergency management agency of four members, two of them hams. ''If we lose communication and we have a disaster in town, we need to be ready for it,'' said Heck. ''You have to be able to work together.'' A town can only use hams if it knows who they are and what they can do to help.

Some towns were motivated to better organize their radio resources by the approach of Y2K, said Marc Stern, who lives in Framingham and is the town's volunteer radio officer for emergency management. The Sept. 11 attack has shaped and will continue to shape the way communities deal with disasters, he said, probably in Massachusetts through an increased regional response.

''Let's assume there's a major terrorist incident in this area,'' said Stern. ''If Natick Mall, God forbid, were to be car-bombed at the height of a shopping day, that would necessitate a response of not only state agencies but local agencies from surrounding towns. I can guarantee the situation would be this: Emergency communications would immediately be swamped. Hams would come up as backup communicators.''

Over the last few months, the Framingham Amateur Radio Association has seen a revival of its communications committee, he said. A couple of years ago, people lost interest in a Sunday-evening emergency training exercise, but now there are five to 10 participants every week. ''There's more enthusiasm than I've seen since Hurricane Bob in 1991,'' said Stern ''I think a lot of it's because of 9-11.''

Emergency communication is just one facet of amateur radio, which has a wide following all over the world. The American Radio Relay League, the largest organization for hams in this country, has more than 160,000 members.

Some hams are primarily interested in public service. Amateur radio operators provide communications for all sorts of events, from small parades and road races to the Boston Marathon.

Scott Ehrlich, a member of the Waltham Amateur Radio Association, found his niche in trading information about severe weather, but one of his favorite stories comes from simply relaying a greeting from a soldier fighting in the Gulf War to his parents. ''It was a message like, `Hi, I'm OK. I just wanted to let you know,''' said Ehrlich. He said he was thrilled that, using just his radio skills and a phone call, he could do something worthwhile. ''They were overjoyed,'' said Ehrlich. ''When you deliver good news, it can melt someone's heart and you can feel that yourself.''

For others, the radio is a social outlet.

''It's like the ladies hanging over the clothesline in the backyard,'' said Needham retiree Gerard Driscoll. ''We call it rag-chewing. I enjoy that tremendously.'' Treasurer of Wellesley's Amateur Radio Society, Driscoll said he chats with friends from the ''radio shack'' in his cellar almost every night. On weekends he reaches a little farther, talking to hams from places like Russia or Australia using Morse code, a requirement for radio operators that was relaxed in the last decade.

For Marlborough schoolteacher Ann Weldon, it's a family affair. Her parents, her husband, and her grown children all have radio licenses. They've gone to Hamfests all over New England and participate in the annual Field Day, a sort of practice for amateur operators that is just as much a social event.

As president of the Algonquin Amateur Radio Club, Weldon is also involved in emergency communications. She said Marlborough's level of preparedness should be an example to other communities. Every month about 10 hams meet at the Fire Department, where there is space devoted to emergency communications. They discuss what's going on in Marlborough and participate in drills.

Sitting in his basement, Heck tuned into a couple of different Southern accents, some Spanish speakers, and snippets of Morse code.

No matter where their interest takes them, it seems that hams are drawn to the airwaves by the challenge of doing it and the friends that can be made along the way.

''I find people who have similar interests in tinkering,'' said Heck. ''And, you know, it's like trying to paddle a boat. How small can you make the oars and still go?''

This story ran on page W3 of the Boston Globe on 1/17/2002.
© Copyright 2002 Globe Newspaper Company.