About Us
The mission, the coordinator, and a plain-language answer to "isn't packet radio dead?"
Our Mission
We're a group of BBS sysops who work together to form the HF SkipNet. We run full-service BBSs with the added ability to forward traffic over our HF bands.
Our SkipNet networks exist in support of homeland security, NTS, and ham-to-ham traffic, as well as bulletin carrying networks. Our networks operate on 40, 30, 20, and 15 meters on a 24/7/365 basis — they're the backbone for the VHF/UHF BBS networks.
Who is the HF SkipNet Coordinator?
My name is Jerry Kutche, N9LYA, and I'm an ARRL member, the Indiana Packet & IP Coordinator, the HF SkipNet Coordinator, a member of the Hoosier Amateur Radio Digital Society (W9OTR), and the Hoosier Radio Society (K9UY). I have a great affection for digital amateur radio and have worked with some of the greatest packet radio pioneers over the last two decades. Each band has its own net manager who helps keep members on frequency and promotes the art of HF packet communication.
What is packet radio?
The good news: you don't have to know a lot about how it works, or memorize a new set of technical terms, to get started. Find a friend who's using packet, get a TNC (terminal node controller), hook up your unit, and ask for help.
A basic TNC lets your computer use your radio to talk to another computer — combining two popular hobbies, computers and radios, into one. Cost depends on what you want to do with it.
Why packet — isn't it dead?
Why not? In the post-9/11 world, packet radio has every function needed to provide a reliable communication path in an emergency. It's cheap to install and maintain, and operation is transparent to the end user: connect, type your message, it sends automatically.
The TNC divides the message into packets, keys the transmitter, sends them, and on the receiving end decodes and checks for errors — a packet only displays if it's correct. Any packet TNC can also work as a digipeater, relaying traffic to extend range.
Networking: TheNet
TheNet was one of the first networking schemes built to address the limits of plain digipeating. A user connects to a TheNet station like any other packet station, then issues commands to instruct that station to connect onward — to another local user, or to another TheNet station.
That connect-then-connect-again approach means your TNC is only ever talking to a local station; your transmissions don't have to be digipeated across the entire network, so there's less risk of losing packets along the way. It's a more reliable design.
VHF/UHF radios are mostly limited to line-of-sight range, while HF extends that from hundreds to thousands of miles. An average packet station covers a radius of roughly 10–30 miles — packet networks widen that by linking a chain of stations together, carrying a message as far as the network reaches.
Packet BBS Systems
Our club runs packet Bulletin Board Systems — BBSs for short. A BBS does two main things: it sends and receives personal messages for its local users, and it sends and receives bulletins intended for people locally or around the county.
Today's Digital Ops
Modern operators have a much wider set of options than in the early packet days. Soundcard modes now rival the best hardware modems of any era — modes like VARA and ARDOP among them. In practice, almost any digital mode or sound modem out there can be pressed into service for BBS message forwarding.
Questions? Leave a pmail at n9lya AT n9lya DOT #sin.in.usa.noam.