Packet Radio, and Viewdata for the 21st century!

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A ‘tongue in cheek’ look at combining amateur Packet Radio with viewdata/videotex to provide a tactical digital radio network for the 21st century.
In previous videos I showed how you could connect a 1980s computer to viewdata and bulletin board systems using a modem and the telephone network. During the mid 80s, before the web was invented, this was the primary way to get your ‘on-line fix’. However, if you were a Radio Amateur back in the day you would have most likely used a Packet Radio system to go online instead.
So here is a video that demonstrated this…. but there’s more!
Packet Radio Details
The Node is TSTAR:G6AML-7 and is located in Upper Basildon, Berkshire IO91KL. It uses a Yaesu FT2600M with TinyTrak 4 TNC and LinBPQ running on a Raspberry Pi. The antenna is a Diamond X30.
For the BBC Micro, the Commstar communications ROM was used connected to a PK88 TNC and Yaesu FT2600M. The antenna was an unbranded Diamond X30 clone. The communications settings were 1200 7E1.
The Linus Laptop (intel MacBook Pro) Used the Telstar Viewdata Client connected to the Kenwood TH-D72. The communications settings were 9600 8N1 (Packet Radio communications were at 1200 baud).
Links
groups.io/g/Ha...
en.wikipedia.o...
www.bugoutbagb...
BBC Micro Setup
The baud rate and parity settings are determined by the TNC computer interface settings. In the case of PK88 with a BBC Micro running Commstar, I used 1200/1200 baud 7E1. This was the case for both Terminal and Prestel modes.
Telstar
Details of Telstar Viewdata Service including the viewdata client software for Windows/MacOS/Linux at glasstty.com/t...
BPQ Configuration to support Telstar.
Add the following line to the Applications section of bpq32.cfg.
APPLICATION 2,TELSTAR,ATTACH 10 GLASSTTY.COM 6503,G6AML-5,TSTARV,0

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6 окт 2024

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Комментарии : 109

@commnavrizzo 2 года назад

I'm not sure that I would call this pointless. I believe at some point packet radio BBS will be essential. Although I figure the state of the world will not be good if that is the case. I appreciate you sharing!

@GlassTTY 2 года назад

Thanks for the comment, I think you are right.

@Flagrazi Год назад

Absolutely right

@zxspectum 2 года назад

Great video, love the log cabin. As a child growing up in the 80's, the ever present threat nuclear war on TV and everywhere has been etched the mindset of survival in us all I think.

@GlassTTY 2 года назад

I agree, I remember those time well and can't help thinking we are never far from those times again.

@chairulhalim4447 Год назад

Great video for old packet radio. I love to see these old stuffs are still working perfect such as old computers and monitors, mechanical keyboard, modems, TNC as well as TTY terminal. I missed it a lot. 👍👍👍

@GlassTTY Год назад

Glad you enjoyed it, I certainly enjoyed making it. Take care. J

@TalmidAndy 8 месяцев назад

Packet is definitely making a comeback and this is a brilliant idea. I had tried TeeFax with amateur TV but few American TVs are capable of any kind of videotext. All we need now is a pre built RPi image or Linux image to help the less knowledgeable to get started.

@GlassTTY 8 месяцев назад

Thanks for the comment. I do like the idea of an RPI image. Hmmm... I might take a look at that.

@Dayta 2 года назад

i just thought back about that time we climbed around on that places where they leave cars after their life time dont know the exact name for that .. and searching for taxis trying to find some old radio in them to connect them to our amigas and have a connection that was like SEVERAL hundret meters :D so we could write stuff and play games like .. walk one ascii coord to the north and stuff like that .. i dont recall the names of those games but nostalgy kicking in watching this video :) so thanks for the nostalgic feeling

@GlassTTY 2 года назад

Glad you liked it. J

@abbyck 2 года назад

Just discovered this gem. Top notch explanation 👌

@GlassTTY 2 года назад

Thanks, for the comment, it's appreciated.

@glenwoofit Год назад

1200 BPS was fun but 9K6 was like lightning ⚡⚡⚡

@GlassTTY Год назад

It certainly was, it seemed instantaneous back then.

@ianhand5006 2 года назад

Trio TR2300! I always wanted one, back in the early 80’s. I bought a Yaesu FT-207R for next to nothing, I still have it and it still works.

@GlassTTY 2 года назад

I love the 2300, I had others but not quite felt as nice as the Trio. I have a few and one is destined to have a new synth (12.5khz) mod.

@bart.grantham 2 года назад

"I hope you agree that it's been, as usual, a fairly pointless exercise..." Not pointless! A least a couple dozen of us have been amused.

@GlassTTY 2 года назад

Thanks for the comment, appreciated.

@RTSRetroTechShed 2 года назад

Thanks for another very informative video. Viewdata over packet radio = Excellent idea!. I still use AX.25 packet radio (Amateur / HAM Radio) to access my local BBS node on occasion, but no longer have a dedicated TNC (sold my Kantronics years ago). I now mainly use the TNC built into a Kenwood TM-D710G or software TNC using Direwolf. BBS access at 1200 is ok, but not so great for TCP/IP (AMPRnet) :)

@GlassTTY 2 года назад

Glad to here that you are still using Packet, whats your nodes call sign?

@RTSRetroTechShed 2 года назад

@@GlassTTY My local BBS node is GB7SOU. Not used it in a while, so tried it this evening - but having trouble getting a stable connection into it. Might be time to put up the GP-9 for a little more gain :)

@TimonSuricata 10 месяцев назад

I miss the BBS Dialup days, that felt very special to, now i need to get into packet radio bbs this stuff is awesome, something i have not gotten into yet, but looking forward to it!

@GlassTTY 10 месяцев назад

Glad you liked it and brought back some memories. There's a lot going on around Packet these days, the Online Amateur Radio Club Discord server includes a lot of packet info.

@Butangeld Год назад

Many thanks! My dad used packet radio back in the 80s, with a Spectrum. I never really got the significance of it at the time, but I remember him downloading programs for other radio comms, like morse code and other HAM related stuff!

@GlassTTY Год назад

Your welcome, I'm glad it brought back some memories. Thanks for the comment. Take care.

@lordmelbury7174 11 месяцев назад

Life is pointless, so we may as well just bask in all things pointless for some escapism! Great video!!

@GlassTTY 11 месяцев назад

Glad you enjoyed it, take care.

@G7LWT 2 года назад

Wonderful - thanks John!!!

@GlassTTY 2 года назад

My pleasure!

@joeyscarlett7994 Год назад

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. You have really created something special. Truly a beautiful work of art. Just got my amateur tech in 2022 and I have been searching for something like this. Can't wait to set up my own page/ frame. I don't understand why packet is such an obscure aspect of amateur radio. I absolutely love it. Kq4cin

@GlassTTY Год назад

I'm glad you enjoyed it. Here in the UK there seems to be a resurgence in packet of late, particularly with the attempt at creating a new national RF Network. 73s

@joeyscarlett7994 Год назад

Made it in. Woohoo! I had two nodes running. One bpq in windows with qtterm and soundmodem. The other a linbpq node with direwolf on a pi3. I connected to the linbpq with soundmodem over vhf. Then telnet from linbpq to telstar. Attach 2 (telnet port) C glasstty.moc 6503 ( an obvious misspelling to thwart this RU-vid ai.) *0# ( page number to get to index) Some notes that might help someone else. Sknaht. Thanks.

@terrymccrarey Год назад

Thank You for the video! A Great Video! I was around in the day when 300 baud was the norm. I liked Packet Radio then and wish more people would get into Packet Radio today! APRS while good, does not beat an old fashion TNC Packet Radio with unlimited abilities! As we know you can not count on cell phones, internet, emails, texting, in a war or any other disaster. Ham Radio is the ONLY communication when a problem hits, what ever it might be. People put too much faith in company owned communication plain and simple. Ham Radio is owned by the Hams and in a disaster or even normal times we can make it through with a two way Ham Radio. Packet was useful, in it's day with super nodes which was around my house a person could send and receive messages and stuff via Packet Radio across the country if you had a single connection to a super node on VHF. In a war what will these cell phone and internet huggers do when it's down for days or months? I guess they will need a medication of some sort. Give me the most reliable form of communication called Ham Radio any day, and add Packet Radio at any speed and I am HAPPY!!!

@GlassTTY Год назад

Glad you liked it. Packet radio is on the uptake here in the UK. There is a plan to create a national network of nodes. So far things are working well and is being coordinated via the Online Amateur Radio Community on Discord. Take Care J

@vbrindle Год назад

Love this.

@GlassTTY Год назад

Thanks Vincent, glad you enjoyed it.

@williamhowell1791 11 месяцев назад

To this date, and for the last 20 or so years, I've never understood why the Amateur world has not moved on from 1200 baud to at least at a minimum 9600 baud rates. With the current technologies available today why in the heck are we still stuck at 1200 baud rate over the radio... It's no wonder packet radio communications went into the trash and until something comes along that faster than 1200 or even 9600 baud rates it will pretty well stay in the trash... You did great on this video, always good for the young people coming along to know about what and how we communicated over 30 years ago.

@GlassTTY 11 месяцев назад

Hi William, thanks for your comments, glad you enjoyed it. I guess with the internet arriving and other forms of radio communication, the focus moved away from VHF/UHF packet and it died a death. There is a growing interest within the Amateur community again now though it will be interesting to see how it develops.

@RedHeat 2 года назад

C MATRIX *hehe* TELSTAR *mind blown* Packet is still as magical as it was, its just where it is practiced that has changed. Facing new technical challenges with the raw power of digital signal processing via software on insanely powerful commodity microcomputers, we are seeing innovations in signal modulation that leave AFSK in the dust but AFSK won’t go away because it is so simple and trivial to do now. So we keep it around even at 300 baud I was tipped off to this video by Steve EI2GYB, we’re both on HF packet rocking a swathe of different modes/TNCs so everyone should be able to get in on the action.

@GlassTTY 2 года назад

That's great to hear, have you tried Telstar over HF?

@GlassTTY Год назад

It has just recently been accessed over HF ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-mlm7HWH-NUc.html

@RedHeat Год назад

@@GlassTTY Thanks John, though i am the same person hehe, this is just my official artist RU-vid account

@247SH Год назад

I used to do packet radio in the 80s and would like to have another go. Thanks for the info.

@GlassTTY Год назад

If you live near Hampshire or Berkshire, check out the Packet group on groups.io. The national packet network section of the Online Amateur Radio club (discord) is also a great resource. Take care. J.

@247SH Год назад

Many thanks. I’m in Lincs but will still have a look.

@PHILG2864 Год назад

I really enjoyed packet radio, for years I ran GB7PHL BBS (W0RLI/W0MBL) and a Fido land-line BBS, but was later reprimanded by the RSGB as I'd interfaced the two with a homebrew box of tricks that simultaneously emulated both a packet-radio TNC and a Fido dial-up node, with transparent messaging between the two. The Packet Radio BBS was unusual in that the caller could QSY the station between two packet channels, 144.650 and 144.675mhz. The RSGB didnt like that either! All the radio & BBS stuff was in Z80 assembler. At the time I also used the "Cambridge" packet radio system which was 'exclusive' to BBC Micro users, I didnt have a Beeb and wrote a CP/M version of the Cambridge protocol for my Bigboard which conversed via the Cottis Blandford cassette interface from my Nascom-1 ! As such I was the only Cambridge packet user without a BBC Micro! I really enjoyed the packet era back in the 80s and I'm pleased to hear it might be making a comeback - I've lost touch with the current state of ham radio, so much has changed. A pal was telling me about some of the new modes and I was just overwhelmed by it all :) Great video again John and a nostalgia trip for me! Cheers John Phil_G

@GlassTTY Год назад

Packet back in the day was very exciting, however, it sounds like you took it to a whole new level. Thanks for sharing. J.

@PrebleStreetRecords Год назад

Fantastic video! Here in the US packet is seeing a resurgence, thanks to off-the-shelf interfaces like the DigiRig. I wish you threw a lowpass filter on the video, though. I can hear the flyback in that CRT screaming at 20kHz!

@GlassTTY Год назад

My hearing has gone downhill since entering my 60s, I can't hear a thing. It does explain the dogs behaviour though. :)

@daveschwarz5279 Год назад

In a war in the middle of nowhere in your Wendy house survival coms …genius 😂❤

@GlassTTY Год назад

Glad you enjoyed it, you can never have enough networks in an emergency.

@lornecraig5480 Год назад

This is exactly what I'm trying to learn about right now. I'm new to vintage PC's and a relatively new radio operator. I imagine if one has a VOIP modem and a phone patch one could experiment over the telephone service? If possible, it would open up experimentation to those without a licence. Looking forward to checking out your other videos. My oldest set up right now is a Comtex 386 with a HAL P38 internal modem card. I have tried out the RTTY mode. But it does Clover as well. I believe that is a digital binary mode? I have a few other older PC's, Tandy's (1000's, 2500) and a Commadore (PC10-III).

@GlassTTY Год назад

Not sure what you are referring to re VoIP modem and phone patch. Telstar can be accessed via phone and is currently hosted on VoIP telephone lines.

@GlassTTY Год назад

Check out the website for more details. Just shout of you have any questions.

@lornecraig5480 Год назад

@@GlassTTY Sorry. I have a hard time communicating my thoughts. I would like to say sometimes... but its more like all the time. Maybe what I was thinking at the time was. If the software could be ported to a soundcard. Then using a phone patch to match your pc's audio I/O to pots lines might be accomplished with an old HAM phone patch. Kind of like when I use MMTTY, MMSSTV or FLDIGI. Except in my case I'm just patching the audio cables right into the back of my transceiver. No doubt your software is designed to send a digital signal out via com port to a modem. You know. The normal way LOL. Ahhh.... I don't know what I was googling the other night. But the results I got are not the same as if you use the link above that you posted. I see that link now and will spend a bit of time reading. But suffice to say for now I have been looking for a BBS type software that I can use in conjunction with my Amateur Radios so as to get away from the web. Which is increasingly turning into Orwells Telescreen.

@Spookieham Год назад

@@lornecraig5480 you need a packet tnc which uses the AX25 protocol and uses radio as the specific transmission medium. The other option is a program called Direwolf and a sound card. You need to read up a bit more though as I don't think you understand the technology layers.

@lassie6 Год назад

Wow man not bad.

@GlassTTY Год назад

Thanks.

@Satscape 9 месяцев назад

On other channels I watch, they predict a massive CME from the sun in 2024 that will fry the electricity grid for pretty much the whole planet. So if a system like this will run off batteries or batteries+inverters...it might be very useful! All I have is a solar/dynamo powered AM/FM radio to find out what just happened?!?! 😁 p.s Glad to see BPQ software still going, G8BPQ used to live in radio range of me

@GlassTTY 9 месяцев назад

I do like the idea of nodes being battery backed as a norm. Thanks for sharing etc. Take care.

@DAVIDGREGORYKERR 2 года назад

I hope that you are going to write your application for the BBC Model B using a Mixture of BBC BASIC and 6502 Assembly language.

@GlassTTY 2 года назад

C or 6502 Assembly for me. At my age these are the only languages where I can remember all the instructions.

@ScottEvans-vk7hse Год назад

The quickest way to get the throughput out of 1k2 baud is provided the path is good and reliable is to put maxframe 7 and paclen 250 this way you'll transfer 1.5k for the seven frames. Most TNC defaults are maxframe 4 paclen 128 and that's only passing 512k over the four frames. However this will make it much worse for distant stations due to collisions or bad packet frames due to the poor signal quality. YMMV

@GlassTTY Год назад

Ok, I get it, thanks. I guess as a provider of the service I have little control over that. Over TCP, Telstar uses one packet per character, which is pretty wasteful but allows for a more realistic experience.

@macuser2469 6 месяцев назад

great vid please do an update

@GlassTTY 6 месяцев назад

Many thanks, I will do a Part 2 as soon as I get a chance. Take care.

@mattparker9726 7 месяцев назад

@GlassTTY I'm looking at packet radio, due to not being able to pay my internet provider, and want to still have the ability to at least send plain text emails. I live in the USA, don't have any sort of license, nor any previous knowledge of radio at all. Would you and your comments please help me solve this problem? I have been looking at used radio stuff on ebay, 10-15 year old stuff, so it's cheap, but I've also seen several PC cards that plug into PCIE x1 and act as an SDR radio. I like the idea of a PC based radio station, as I already own a powerful gaming PC, and am pretty good with computers. Additionally, I have mounted to my roof, an old analogue TV antenna, and isn't that tuned for VHF and UHF? Could I use that for this application? I have so many questions! I do realize this is a joke video, but the title intrigued me when it popped up on my feed. Thanks in advance! Also I really miss the innovation of the 70s and 80s in terms of computing experimentation. subscribed!

@GlassTTY 7 месяцев назад

Thanks for the comment. You say you don't have a license, so start there. Join a local radio club and study for the amateur radio license and all will become clear.

@2kBofFun 6 месяцев назад

Could LORA be an alternative for creating a network? How do you serve the viewdata, so not the client? I especially need insight in how stuff was encoded. I know it basically sends out Teletext like pages, but I found out that the special characters were encoded with escape characters, which were also used to be able to send program blocks. As teletext only sends 128 characters (7-bit), the upper 128 bits from program bytes needed a special treatment.

@GlassTTY 6 месяцев назад

Hi thanks for leaving a comment. For details of the service itself check out this link. Https://GlassTTY.com/Telstar. For the terminal protocol, this document should help. github.com/johnnewcombe/telstar-2/blob/main/documents/Prestel%20Terminal%20Specification.pdf I hope that helps. J.

@W4TRI Год назад

"But with a grant I could make it more silly!" Imagine 300 BPS on HF!

@GlassTTY Год назад

ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-mlm7HWH-NUc.html

@Zanaz728 Год назад

There's a potential to this... not government though.. but more to among scattered community that might exist in some remote area somewhere with little resources that they might have.. i don't know, it's just probable. I think..

@GlassTTY Год назад

Thanks for sharing. Let's hope it is only ever used for fun. Take care.

@rodo19724 5 месяцев назад

Hi !! Greetings from Argentina !!!!!!! How can I use two Baofeng BF-999 and two arduinos to transmit and receive data over-the-air ?? Thanks !!!!!

@GlassTTY 5 месяцев назад

Hello to you too. I'm not the right person to answer your question but I ask on one of the Amateur Radio forms. Take care.

@thuff3207 Год назад

That was just cool. I mostly run APRS and APRS messaging but with direwolf i can run packet. Will this run on a small computer like the Raspberry Pi.

@GlassTTY Год назад

Yes it will. I run my node on a Pi, bear in mind that Telstar is cloud based. Although that will work on a Pi too.

@gm5aug 11 месяцев назад

Thanks OM. What application are you using on your laptop to interface with the radio/access TELSTAR? I can use the standard terminal/minicom combination to connect to the TNC, but that doesn't show the TELSTAR properly.

@GlassTTY 11 месяцев назад

Hi, I used Commstar on the BBC and the Telstar Terminal on the Mac (versions for on Linux and PC also) if you check the glasstty website you should find it, I'll also put a link in the description of the video.

@drewproductions1358 Год назад

are your wall posters from cut out magazine pages? I collect old tech ads from magazines

@GlassTTY Год назад

The Sinclair one is, others have either been printed from images or are actual brochures etc.

@africantwin173 2 года назад

What do people use these days on Windows for ax25 programs. I remember that i have used tsthwin. I would love to give packet radio a try again, but im not interested in DOS.

@GlassTTY 2 года назад

Not sure, I didn't realise people still used Windows :).

@africantwin173 2 года назад

@@GlassTTY I like Ubuntu, but there desktop interface really sucks.

@GlassTTY Год назад

Arch Linux for me!

@zoeyzhang9866 2 года назад

Hi John, nice content you've shared! Don't know if any PCB service you may need for upcoming videos? If so, would love to sponsor and having any collabs with you! (PCBWay zoey)

@GlassTTY 2 года назад

Thanks, I will certainly keep that in mind. I'll get in touch when I start my next vid.

@markphillips8019 4 месяца назад

Ha! Its funny that you should show a 40+ year old radio for a 40+ year old data system.

@GlassTTY 4 месяца назад

I have a few of those radios, I love them. Thanks for leaving a comment. Take care.

@TheOpinionatedYouTuber 2 года назад

Why CTRL+M and not just the enter key?

@GlassTTY 2 года назад

It's a good question, the enter key in Viewdata terminals represents the hash symbol. Remember that viewdata was originally designed around a TV remote with 0-9 # and *. When terminal software was introduced the return key was used for the # key. To control the TNC etc # is no good hence ctrl M. I hope that makes sense.

@rogue_soul 2 года назад

Totally pointless but immensely intriguing. I've been looking for an excuse to get into Radio too...

@GlassTTY 2 года назад

I only said 'fairly pointless' :), thanks for the comment. Let me know if you set up a node or need any help etc.

@singletona082 2 года назад

Why does everything have to be 'tactical.' yes it's useful in an emergancy or at least in a point where there is no internet, but it isn't always to do with EmComm, especially given the focus now seems to be acting as that 'last mile/kilometer' link between disaster area, and normal communications. In that situation this seems a bit not nessicary or even sought after. Still damned cool though.

@GlassTTY 2 года назад

Like the very early days of computing, I guess I was trying a bit too hard to find a use for something that was just fun. :)

@singletona082 2 года назад

@@GlassTTY Which is fair.

@vanhetgoor Год назад

It is not quick. But it will do. After the 3rd World War there is nothing to complain. To complain about or to complain with, because nothing will be working, only old technology will keep on working, the analogue telephone, the telegraph (not the newspaper but the one with Morse code) and only the microcomputers that were sealed in an iron case, like the Altair 8800 and some Atari's (not all!). I am sorry, the BBC will not survive, the case was made out of plastic giving the computer no protection against radiation or an EMP. There will be no possibility to receive viewdata or videotex in the new age. Not a single old technology microcomputer will be capable of doing so. All modern equipment with microchips in it will be dead.

@GlassTTY Год назад

Crikey... You're a cheery soul. :) Take care.

@tamphex Год назад

Lets be honest here; the real reason for the English requiring this as an option for communication is so they can continue to have a whinge with each other. After all, having a whine is like oxygen to the poms. 4:41 hahaha what happened to your hair?!

@GlassTTY Год назад

I thought I'd got away with it. The bit around 4:41 was filmed on two different days. Apart from the hair I thought continuity was quite good. In terms of the main point in your comment, I can't help seeing the irony of talking about whining poms in a message that is whining about my hair. :) Take care 😉.