| > hams have their own packet radio stuff We got basically three different things. First we got APRS, mostly used for position reports (go on aprs.fi for a map). That is pretty nice but unusable for anything more than a SMS worth of things, and you need repeaters and not just internet gateway collectors to actually have something that's resilient. Next thing is AX25, the technical foundation behind APRS. Yes you can use it to create actual data links, but it's about modem speeds so virtually useless outside of toying around. And finally there is HamNet but it's line of sight based and not cross routed to the internet, and identically to all things ham radio, encryption is banned by law. And on top of that, you can expect regulatory agencies to crack down on ham radio fast and hard, should it be used for political dissency motives at scale. It's already against ham practice to talk politics, especially with people in repressive countries - we don't want more countries other than Yemen and North Korea to just blanket ban ham radio. |
I don’t understand this sentiment. For exchanging information, modem speeds were great. Wikipedia, forums like this one, instant messengers, etc all worked fine