My first taste of Amateur Radio was in the early 90s – I have a ‘replacement’ operators certificate dated 1991, and maybe even one of my original yellow licenses from the Department of Communications kicking around in a box somewhere.
It’s been a while since I’ve messed around with amateur radio. I use APRS on and off for various reasons, but voice nets weren’t really of interest, and data networking was always pretty interesting to me. In the 90s I played around with AX.25 and even went to Vancouver Area Packet Organization meetings but as AX.25/IP gradually died out I found other interesting use cases in the ISM bands to play with.
QRP and digital modes have been on my radar for a while. One of these days I’ll get more into HF work, but lately I’ve been eyeballing the need for a new HT – and location tracking is pretty much mandatory. I’m not interested in spending a lot on an HT either and as a result, I’m eagerly awaiting my BTECH DMR-6×2 to mess with.
The thing does APRS over analog, and SMS over DMR intrigues me. Actually, 9600 bps over 2×6.5 Khz channels intrigues me – but that’s a post for another day.
In the mean time.. notes to self:
- https://amateurradionotes.com/pi-star.htm#controlsoftware
- https://www.hamradio.com/detail.cfm?pid=H0-016662
