[Noisebridge-discuss] CQ CQ CQ de KA6RCQ

[Jonathan Lassoff]

Encapsulated within <20090214043221.GA27840 at mail.b79.net> on Fri, Feb 13, 2009 at 08:32:22PM -0800, John Magolske <listmail at b79.net> wrote:
> From: John Magolske <listmail at b79.net>
> To: noisebridge-discuss at lists.noisebridge.net
> Subject: Re: [Noisebridge-discuss] CQ  CQ CQ de KA6RCQ
> 
> Ham radio at Noisebridge seems apropos -- IIRC a noise bridge is a
> device used by hams to measure the impedance of cables & antennas.
> 
> I'm fascinated by how the amateur radio community has been involved
> with radio since radio was invented (wasn't radio invented by hams?
> and wasn't there a ham radio satellite in orbit within years of
> sputnik?). I like how as as self-policing global community it has
> been able to reserve many segments throughout the spectrum of radio
> frequencies all the way up 250 GHz for non-commercial community use.
> 
> My interests around ham radio include emergency preparedness (NERT),
> and packet radio / digital text transmission. How possible would it be
> to set up an irc channel over local 2-meter repeaters? It would be so
> cool to get irssi to interface with packet radio!

I thought about doing this once. I used to have an AX.25 packet radio setup where I was regularly conversing with a couple of other local hams over simplex packet. I was just exploring IRC for the first time around then and thought, "hey wouldn't it be cool to have an IRC-to-AX.25 gateway". I envisioned it working much the same way bitlbee works today (an IRC-to-IM gateway server http://www.bitlbee.org/ ).
Alas, that packet station is no longer and I've since abandoned any work on the idea. Would love to ressurect it though!

This could be really useful in an emergency since it could establish ad-hoc point-to-multipoint text hotline - no infrastructure required. Run it off a car battery or a solar panel even.

--j