🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <MAS.91May29090831@arcsun.arc.ab.ca> mas@arcsun.arc.ab.ca (Marc Schroeder) writes:
>I am not a ham, but I delved into it at one point out of interest. I was
>particularly fascinated by packet radio. However, at the time it seemed to
>me that speeds were too slow to serve any practical purpose - especially
>to access the internet.
>This all would have been back in the 80's, when most of the hams I knew
>were operating at ~1200 baud.. and then there was some propagation delay
>to be dealt with, as I recall.
>My question is this: Has packet radio progressed enough in the last few
>years to serve as a _practical_ communications medium? Could it realistically
>compete with more standard methods?

   Well, because of bandwidth limitations with HF, it's not going to get
much higher than 1200 baud.  And granted that 1200 baud isn't so hot for
internet access, but it's amazing how much can be done with 1200.  Until
about ten years back, hams were limited to 110 baud with Baudot code by
U.S. law.  1200 bps is a vast improvement, but of course it requires much
better propagation conditions for HF than the slower speeds.
   There are a lot of us still running morse code at 20 wpm, and it's
astonishing how much information can be carried if it's properly encoded.
--scott