Crystal Radio -- Nice! You don't necessarily need a Germanium crystal, people used to use Galena (lead sulfide), or even an oxidized razor blade for the semiconductor detector. I'm not so old that I didn't have an early transistor radio in Jr. High, but it was fun and easy to make your own crystal set. And it didn't need batteries! Plus, there was Wolfman Jack on XERB AM.
Regarding automation and TARPN, which is based purely on Raspi and Linbpq32, do not forget the fact that BPQ32 has a full service Bulletin Board System at each sysops
disposal. I send bulletins and personal messages to the stations on the other end of my dedicated point to point links. They forward them to their neighbors, and so on. As a courtesy to all, ee do not forward beyond one hop on any dedicated link. If there are personal messages or outstanding bulletins for someone that I cannot reach directly, my immediate neighbor receives the messages and relays it to someone with which
he has a dedicated link. Kind of like it was done in the early days of amateur radio, the result being the ARRL.
Automation is alive and well on the Kentuckiana TARPN.
Gary - Apparently I misunderstood that TARPN and NCPacket do in fact forward BBS traffic, email, bulletins, etc. over the network. Their intent is to not have out-of-network traffic (such as something originating on the Internet) automatically forwarded through the network. I'll clarify this point in the next issue of Zero Retries.
Crystal Radio -- Nice! You don't necessarily need a Germanium crystal, people used to use Galena (lead sulfide), or even an oxidized razor blade for the semiconductor detector. I'm not so old that I didn't have an early transistor radio in Jr. High, but it was fun and easy to make your own crystal set. And it didn't need batteries! Plus, there was Wolfman Jack on XERB AM.
Regarding automation and TARPN, which is based purely on Raspi and Linbpq32, do not forget the fact that BPQ32 has a full service Bulletin Board System at each sysops
disposal. I send bulletins and personal messages to the stations on the other end of my dedicated point to point links. They forward them to their neighbors, and so on. As a courtesy to all, ee do not forward beyond one hop on any dedicated link. If there are personal messages or outstanding bulletins for someone that I cannot reach directly, my immediate neighbor receives the messages and relays it to someone with which
he has a dedicated link. Kind of like it was done in the early days of amateur radio, the result being the ARRL.
Automation is alive and well on the Kentuckiana TARPN.
Gary - Apparently I misunderstood that TARPN and NCPacket do in fact forward BBS traffic, email, bulletins, etc. over the network. Their intent is to not have out-of-network traffic (such as something originating on the Internet) automatically forwarded through the network. I'll clarify this point in the next issue of Zero Retries.