Amateur Packet Radio in North Carolina

Packet Nodes

I started running packet radio way back in the 90s using a homebrew Baycom modem, a kind of a dumb modem that simply converted data to tones, and would key your transmitter, so you could connect to near by nodes. One thing I learned over the years living in Colorado was that we were “Ham Heavy” and “Digitally Inclined”.

I lived at 7000’ above Sea Level, had a 30 foot tower, a dozen antennas and could communicate anywhere with anyone, pretty much at any time depending on propagation. My node could hit New Mexico’s Ratton Pass site, on most days.

Having left the altitude in 2015 for Sea Level explorations aboard our ship, I never lost interest in Ham Radio, but under the circumstances, I couldn’t continue normal operations day to day, because I was so busy managing the ship, repairing things, traveling or tacking back and forth when cruising. Radio became a lesser important thing for me for a long time. But, now I have a house again….

Which brings me to Packet Radio. We bought the house two years ago, and my friend in Colorado, Rick H. (KE0GB) shipped me a Raspberry Pi 3, some cables and an old Kam Plus TNC, the one with a VHF and HF port set up. He also took the liberty of setting up BPQ software for me as well.

The site went up about two years ago and I’ve had more than 30,000 messages pass through the system. We had a local node on a tower that covered almost all Brunswick County. But, due to unforeseen circumstances, it was removed, and then relocated to a lower tower, farther from me. Now, rumor has it, it will be going away, along with several other nodes, and some repeaters.

Basically, we will be isolated and blind here where I live soon. While I can still use HF packet (we are on the Net105, 14105 Khz 300 baud) we can not pass BBS traffic because we’re really there to be used by others and communicate. Plus, 300 baud is interminably slow.

Myself and a few others are trying to work out a way to get a few folks in the region to bring packet stations online on VHF though, and we should be able to link the nodes that way. I’m in a very GOOD location, halfway between Wilmington and Myrtle Beach and if we can get some folks out there with high enough antennas we ought to be able to relay up and down the coast.

So, if you are in the area of North/South Carolina along the coast and want to participate and help out, give us a holler! You can hit me on 145.010 Mhz 1200 baud, or come up on HF and link to my station to leave BBS traffic. You can send me an email at N0NJY@qsl.net as well.