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PE1RRR > PACKET 30.03.22 13:35l 76 Lines 3238 Bytes #999 (0) @ WW
BID : 35184-PE1RRR
Read: GUEST
Subj: Emergency WWW via Packet Radio & More
Path: IW8PGT<IZ3LSV<I0OJJ<EA2RCF<LU9DCE<N7HPX<W9GM<N3HYM<IV3BVK<PE1RRR
Sent: 220330/1126Z @:PE1RRR.#NBW.NLD.EURO #:35184 [Rijen] $:35184-PE1RRR
From: PE1RRR@PE1RRR.#NBW.NLD.EURO
To : PACKET@WW
Updated 2022:
This is a demonstration of several cool features I have added to a
regular packet radio switch, one of which enables access to crucial
information that would otherwise have be unobtainable for a
vulnerable and isolated radio amateur without Internet (they exist!)
The idea was initially sparked in a chat with a fellow ham Sholto,
K7TMG who had expressed the desire to fiddle with websites over
packet. At first, I wasnâ€Öt too keen on the idea namely because of
legal restrictions on the type of information permitted over amateur
radio frequencies, however after some thought it occured to me that
it would be possible to implement a portal with some precautionary
measures in place, but the idea was then shelved.
A couple of weeks passed, and COVID had just began to spread forcing
lockdown/shelter in place in many countries. It was not long after
the United Kingdom entered its first major lockdown when a series of
packet radio delivered mails arrived from a curious British ham.
I quickly established that this was a much older gentleman that had
become isolated and unable to look up information online due to
having no Internet or relatives that lived on site that would have
been able to. The only people he had any physical contact with were
community volunteers dropping off the weekly groceries!
Since he had maintained for many years a “2 meter” ham radio and
packet radio modem linked to the local packet node, it was through
this with which he established a connection to his local bulletin
board, GB7COV, Coventry, in central England.
Over the course of a couple of weeks, numerous requests for
up-to-date COVID information as well as prices for replacement
motorcycle parts came in to my BBS mailbox here in the Netherlands.
It was a little unsettling to see directly how dependent the old and
vulnerable are on others in close physical proximity, as he was
amidst a world where essentially almost everything is now
online-only without so much as a mobile phone.
Still- it was pretty neat that heâ€Öd got packet up and running and it
was surprising that the node nearest to him was still on the air
(thanks to the sysop, Roger- G3ZFR!) after many many years of
dwindling usage.
It is important to remember that packet radio was the forerunner of
the modern Internet and many hams had packed up shop not long after
access to the Internet had become ubiquitous, established affordably
in almost every home as just another household utility.
Here follows a video about the interface I had quickly hacked
together to work across packet radio at very slow speeds without
breaking license rules, utilizing the Lynx browser wrapped within a
turn-based-GUI, leveraging the web-to-text conversion system of Lynx
together with a custom script converting the hyperlinks to numeric
choices from a simple text menu.
The same interface also expanded into additional services such as
provisioning text-adventure games over packet radio. Take a look:
Node: PE1RRR-10:WWW via PE1RRR-7:RIJEN
Video demo and introduction:
https://eindhoven.space/radio-experiments/packet-radio/packet-web-portal-games-more/
73
--
PE1RRR <PE1RRR@PE1RRR.#NBW.NLD.EURO>
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