🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <MAS.91May29090831@arcsun.arc.ab.ca> mas@arcsun.arc.ab.ca (Marc Schroeder) writes:
>
>On the subject of possibly accessing the net with packet radio:
>
>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?
>
>  Marc.

From a TECHNICAL standpoint, yes.  Local VHF links at 56Kb are starting
to become common.  Experimentation with 2Mb and up networks has yielded
good results.

HOWEVER

There is a real killer to the idea of extending USENET around the world
via ham packet:  IT ISN'T LEGAL!

Current US law and the WARC treaties make it impossible to use packet to
drop e-mail/newsfeeds into the rest of the world.  Regardless of the
TECHNICAL feasibility of this proposal, until the LAWS are changed, it
won't happen.
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