[Coco] Ham Radio

[jdaggett at gate.net]

That is KA9Q software. 

The last itme I used packet here in So. Fla it was a mess. About 8 yrs ago. Half the 
state was Rose, (northern part) and the other, (southern part) was Net One. just to 
get a connection from Ft. Lauderdale to Jacksonville required the right phase of the 
moon. Jupiter needed to be in Sagitarius and the wind had to be out of the south. 
Then you might have the connection for about an hour before some link in the 
middle failed. Typical hop was Ft. Lauderdale to Ft. Myers, to Sarasota, to 
Aracadia, to Orlando,  to Ocala, to Palatka, then to Jacksonvile. The link from 
Arcadia to Orlando was the weakest one. At 430 Mhz it had the longest haul. Using 
400Mhz around the east central part of the state is limited. Cape Kennedy and 
Patrick AFB restricted radiated power. Essentially there was a wall in central 
Florida, Considerig MacDill AFB in Tampa, McCoy NAS in Orlando and the Cape 
on the east coast.. McCoy is gone now and McDill AFB has reduced importance so 
that should have freed up a lane to the north.  

One of these days I may just check again to see if the service is more reliable and 
better performance. 

james

WA4BZJ      



On 10 Nov 2003 at 8:48, john donaldson wrote:

>    I used to run KN9Q (sp) on my MM/1 and had a ball 
> talking
> to other hams using it and watching traffic over the 
> packet
> network.
> 
> John Donaldson
> AB8YZ
> 
> 
> On Sun, 09 Nov 2003 22:15:32 -0800
>   <jimcox at miba51.com> wrote:
> >John:
> >
> >Drop me a line some time, I'd like to learn more about 
> >packet radio.
> >
> >Jim
> >
> >On Mon, 27 Oct 2003 17:12:55 -0800
> >  "John Guin" <johnguin at hotmaill.com> wrote:
> >>Hello all,
> >>
> >>I was reading Jim Cox's mail about not pursuing ham radio 
> >>work with the Coco
> >>in the Seattle/Bellevue area.
> >>
> >>I'm also a ham radio operator in the Seattle area, and 
> >>have had antenna
> >>restrictions to deal with as well.
> >>
> >>Back when I had my packet radio set up, I used a 19" long 
> >>antenna made from
> >>#12 wire and got reception and transmission good enough 
> >>from West Seattle to
> >>the node closest to my condo - about 3 miles away.  I 
> >>used my old 2 meter
> >>handheld, and it worked very well.  It only had one watt 
> >>of transmitting
> >>power.  That's all you need to get started on packet
> >>
> >>IIRC, there was actually a packet article or two in the 
> >>Rainbow, but I'm not
> >>sure how useful the information would be.  The packet 
> >>modem does most of the
> >>work, though, so the easiest thing to do with a Coco now 
> >>would be to use a
> >>terminal program to log data.  Since the Coco uses a 
> >>standard voltage on the
> >>serial port, it is not as hard to connect the modem as 
> >>some other 8 bit
> >>machines (Commodore, I'm talking to you).
> >>
> >>Anyway, the point of this letter is not to let antenna 
> >>restrictions keep you
> >>off the air.  Unless you were wanting to get involved 
> >>with Clover or some of
> >>the other low frequency modes, a really cheap "coat 
> >>hanger" antenna sitting
> >>in a window is all you really need.
> >>
> >>73,
> >>John Guin
> >>KB7ZJW
> >>
> >>-- 
> >>Coco mailing list
> >>Coco at maltedmedia.com
> >>http://five.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/coco
> >
> >
> >-- 
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> >Coco at maltedmedia.com
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