I have an idea to pop up GM/SS-171 tomorrow with my new Tait 8110. As well as being a decent voice rig on 2M it was also primarily purchased for packet use - the fact that it is light enough for SOTA is a bonus.
I have my laptop and NinoTNC ready to go and tested, and I have BPQ32 configured and tested with a few local stations - it can accept incoming connections. If I was to sit in the chat on the local laptop and exchange RST in there with the summit reference part of the connect text so people see it on-join would that be enough? I could keep the squelch off so I can estimate the S and the T parts manually.
Other idea is for individual stations to log BBS messages but that’s a lot of faff on my side. Keeps QSOs tidy and separate from each other though.
I’ll do voice as well, obviously, but I like to try new things. 0800-0830Z start time if I can get up Allermuir quick enough.
I can’t recall mention of packet radio on here recently although a search throws up a few links from the past. I think FT4/FT8 has taken it’s place.
Given I’ve delayed a day I’ve set up a portable node on a Pi Zero with a typical USB battery. Slightly less to carry than the laptop!
If this works it’d be really cool. Could leave this working away while having a voice frequency going too (if they don’t interfere). I will be in the chat too to do it manually, it won’t be automatic connect, copy summit ref and then go.
Would appreciate some friendly thoughts or criticism, anyway.
As long as connections are direct and not “repeated” then that is a valid QSO. You should exchange signal reports but it doesn’t say RST. As AX25 is fully error correcting ( a packet is rejected if in error ), then being able to exchange a message is sufficient, in my view, for it to be a valid exchange.
Yeah, that’s a good point, I may have to warn people in the banner text to connect direct, one hop RF-only.
In which case per your last sentence them connecting direct to my node, reading the summit reference off the node connect text, and then immediately quitting would, technically, count as a QSO?
I mean, I’d rather try and shell in and chat to folk, but also I am having problems setting my Pi up for that.
Scratch that - with the help of a great package called ComItUp my Pi now loads up, gives me a captive portal webpage to connect to an AP if it sees networks, or I can leave it in AP mode if not. Then I can shell in using Terminus on my iPhone after connecting to the AP.
One small issue is the inability to get the time on-boot. I’ll look into maybe a small GPS system for that. But I’ll log myself too EDIT: now fixed, wifi priority either makes it join home wifi first or phone hotspot second.
OK, I am feeling much better this week, the weather is also super nice tomorrow. Dry, calm, cool. So I’ve popped up an alert for GM/SS-171 10:00Z tomorrow to finally give this a go. It’ll be 1200 bd AX.25 @ 12 Watts from the mighty Tait 8110, you can connect to 2M0IIG-7 and then either disconnect upon getting the summit reference in the banner text or use the “chat” command to drop into the chat room - hopefully I’ll be waiting on the other end of my terminal client on my phone.
