Jason, There was an STA (Special Temporary Authorization) that ARRL got from the FCC, many years ago to test the concept of unattended HF packet stations to form a network. There are a few hams who continue to attempt to operate this system on at least 20, 30, and 40 meters.
Needless to say, 300 baud does not work well on HF. At least not with conventional two tone packet. For their own reasons, they chose not to move toward a far better ARQ mode. I am supportive of the concept of a sort of "mesh network" of HF stations but only if they are effective. If you tune into their frequenices and watch the retry/retry/retry/ over and over again until they often time out, you realize that this is not a good system. The NTS later on created the NTS/D (National Traffic System/Digital) which primarily runs on Pactor modes using the Winlink system and is much more effective in traffic handling. MARS also uses Winlink. These both use the original Winlink system that connects amateur radio stations to each other and does not go through the internet. Most of these nets are not something that the average ham can hook into and send traffic as they tend to be closed unless you join them and not many hams have the interest to do so. It is so bad now in Region 9 where I live that there are no longer any NTS/D stations at all! The internet has pretty much taken most of the traffic, either directly, or through hybrid systems such as the Winlink 2000 system that primarily uses the internet to handle traffic and connects to amateur radio via various HF and VHF portals. 73, Rick, KV9U Jason Hsu wrote: > < There is at least one official ARRL Skipnet operation on 10.147, but > it is fair to say that few use the band for digital links other than > Winlink 2000.> > What is Skipnet? > Need a Digital mode QSO? Connect to Telnet://cluster.dynalias.org Other areas of interest: The MixW Reflector : http://groups.yahoo.com/group/themixwgroup/ DigiPol: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Digipol (band plan policy discussion) Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/digitalradio/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
