A NEW take on BBS over radio! - Introducing the TC² Off-Grid APRS BBS & Mail system!

[@bobperkinson6249]

Back in the 80's I had packet radio nodes placed at several location in middle Tennessee using MFJ node controllers and Alinco 2M single channel radios. Buck Rogers K4ABT introduced me to the hobby, and helped keep my nodes up to date with burning the Eproms with all the area codes of the other reachable nodes. As the digital world moved on, Buck and I got older life got in the way, up keep of the nodes became harder and harder I lost interest. Now in my late 70's I am trying to play catch up. Thanks for bringing packet back.

[@The_Comms_Channel]

Sure thing! Great to hear from someone who has been involved since the early days of packet! It's such a useful form of communication and I hope it makes a comeback. I'll definitely be doing what I can to help bring it back!

[@terrybrown877]

Similar here. Early days of packet 9600 bps RF backbone (FAST in those days) with local RF access at 1200 Texnet from south Texas to Missouri. Now In Missouri still couple local nodes Branson area. Scarce activity

[@suislidesullivan]

Your project has made me realize that constructing a MUD (Multi User Dungeon) for these systems is entirely possible as well. Creating a multiplayer text game built on Meshtastic/APRS might catch the interest of people who never really had a reason to look at this side of the radio hobby.

[@The_Comms_Channel]

There's some traditional packet radio nodes running Zork so definitely possible!

[@carltonsiple1876]

@@suislidesullivan u should look at KM6LYW DigiPi has a built in packet node with Zork, and Hitchhiker Guide... Pretty cool on packet. This APRS BBs will be awesome

[@josegregoriogonzalez874]

Interesting project. With the VR-N76 now supporting KISS TNC via Bluetooth many more people can go back to APRS.

[@The_Comms_Channel]

Thanks! For sure! Great radio for the price and I think it'll get more people into APRS/Packet Radio!

[@thetechnicalham]

This is awesome. I've been wanting to get packet going for my area and this would make it easier to run

[@The_Comms_Channel]

Sure thing! That's what I'm hoping for. More to come!

[@hawkeyeCH53E]

Very cool demonstration of APRS and BBS capabilities. I'm about ready to get rid of my Yaesu FT-5DR and get that VGC HT. Love that clockwork raspberry pi too. I've been looking at it for some time. Need to pull the tripper and buy one.

[@The_Comms_Channel]

Loving the VGC and the Clockwork Pi! The only downside to the Clockwork Pi is the wait.. Hopefully the turnaround time has improved by now but took about 10 months for mine to arrive.

[@highdesertdrew]

This is great stuff. Ham radio slowly getting fun again.

[@The_Comms_Channel]

Thanks! Yes, it is!

[@mediocreman2]

This is cool. Looking forward to a video showing how everything is set up, at least for us neophytes.

[@The_Comms_Channel]

Sure thing! I'll get a setup video out soon.

[@seanwieland9763]

Huge fan of this project and sincerely appreciate all the work you’re doing with this. 2024 was the year of packet radio making a comeback, and 2025 will see a ton more packet radio participants.

[@The_Comms_Channel]

Sure thing! Appreciate your interest! I think so too. With inexpensive radios like the VGC VR-N76 and BTECH UV-PRO, I think we'll see an increased interest with packet radio from those who wouldn't have considered it before.

[@KM4ACK]

Very interesting!

[@The_Comms_Channel]

Thanks! May be something to incorporate into 73 Linux!

[@0xKruzr]

this is really cool work, man. thanks for posting.

[@The_Comms_Channel]

Sure thing! Much more to come!

[@rufusrizzo78]

Nice! Thanks for your work and sharing! I'll look forward to trying

[@The_Comms_Channel]

Sure thing! Hope you enjoy it! I'll work the bugs out, add a few more features, and do another video on here soon when it's released.

[@daleurban4059]

Thank you for the work ur doing

[@The_Comms_Channel]

Sure thing! Appreciate you watching. More to come!

[@justincorey9822]

Ok...this is amazing and I think I just found my new hobby. Thanks for the videos. Subscribed! Have you made any videos on how a newbie can get started? (what to buy? Does this require a license or permit? etc?). Thanks again!!!!!

[@The_Comms_Channel]

Sure thing! It's a great hobby. Thanks for the sub!! I'll be doing a series of videos on APRS & Packet radio to help people get started that will cover everything. These are ham radios, so they do require a license but it's not hard to study for and there are websites and apps like Ham Study that you can use to study for the test. All of the possible test questions and answers are there to get you ready. Feel free to reach out with any questions!

[@justincorey9822]

Excellent. Thanks! Yeah currently studying for my Technician license. Is that sufficient or do you need General or Extra? Also, I am in Tennessee and it seems there are a lot of Hams here!

[@The_Comms_Channel]

Perfect! Most packet radio stuff and APRS is on 2m so you can join in with a tech license. Tennessee has a lot of great hams. Love it here!

[@justincorey9822]

​@@The_Comms_ChannelThanks for the info, and sorry for all the questions! 😂

[@The_Comms_Channel]

@@justincorey9822 Sure thing! Happy to answer any questions you may have!

[@Glock21911]

Man that is cool! Going to get me back on meshtastic

[@bruehlt]

So fricken cool man! Nice job!!

[@The_Comms_Channel]

Thanks! Stay tuned for more!

[@tchambers807]

That clockwork device looks awesome!! What version did you get?

[@The_Comms_Channel]

Pretty cool device for sure! I got the uConsole Kit RPI-CM4 Lite with WIFI+4G cellular

[@SkruxLabs-vq4ho]

Hey, this is pretty cool. I’ll have to play around with this. Also, it’s cool to see one of your meshtatic nodes show up in my peers list. Also, have you looked into Reticulum? It’s pretty early in the dev but it’s so much more flexible and scalable than meshtatic.

[@The_Comms_Channel]

Nice! You in TN as well? I've looked at Reticulum and it looks interesting. I've just not gotten a chance to play around with it yet but hopefully soon

[@SkruxLabs-vq4ho]

@ East TN, yes. I’m pretty excited about that project. During a test setup in my lab I was able to make a phone call between the two clients connected via the mesh through LoRa. The audio quality was pretty rough but it is promising. The pictures you are able to send work really well too. Also, you can host plaintext off grid websites on the mesh. Not as low power as you’ll need at least an rpi zero in the repeater cabinet but my test node has ran for the last two months on solar.

[@darryldowney]

Fantastic! Subbed.

[@The_Comms_Channel]

Thanks for the sub!

[@richonguzman]

Hi, great add: 1) how much time will be a message saved? 2) bulletins are ment to be read by all that access the BBS? 3) the Addressee of any message will get a RF message notification or will only know if it connects to bbs about a message for him?

[@The_Comms_Channel]

Thanks Ricardo! 1) This will eventually be configurable in the config file 2) Yes. Could potentially have groups, but keeping it simple for now 3) The plan is to have it send a notification to the user upon the posting of the message. If it doesn't receive an ack, it will monitor for beacons from the user, and if it sees one, it will notify them that they have a message waiting.

[@richonguzman]

@@The_Comms_Channel great 3) will not work unless it beacons in the same "non APRS freq" though :/

[@The_Comms_Channel]

That is true. Doesn't necessarily need to be a beacon. Could do this even if they're messaging another user on freq.

[@SpookyLurker]

VM with USB port pass-thru to it to connect a radio? Sounds smashing! I don't own an IC-705, but I'd like to, TH-D75A on the other hand - had it now for almost a month.

[@The_Comms_Channel]

I'll be working on a way to do this via serial port which will work with radios like the Kenwoods and VGC VR-N76!

[@vidcreator5276]

Just discovered your channel a couple of weeks ago. I have 2 questions somewhat relating to this video. 1. Will the Clockwork device run KM4ACK's 73 Linux software? 2. What is the dimensions of the your Clockwork device (width, length and thickness?) Thanks - KG0VA Gerald

[@The_Comms_Channel]

1. It should! It's basically just a Raspberry Pi under the hood which 73 Linux supports. 2. About 5.2" W, 6.8" H, 12.9" Thick

[@vidcreator5276]

@@The_Comms_Channel Thank you very much for the information. I may just have to get in line for one of these gadgets. Thank you for you high quality channel. Gerald - KG0VA

[@The_Comms_Channel]

@@vidcreator5276 sure thing! Happy to help! The wait is a bit long but worth it

[@matsherwood6277]

Dude, I want a uconsole so bad but I’m afraid the wait time will be insane. How long did it take for yours to come from order?

[@The_Comms_Channel]

It took a while for mine. I think like 10 months or so 😬 lol It's been a while though so hopefully the wait times are better

[@matsherwood6277]

That's a lot of patience for an impatient person like myself! Haha. Thanks for the reply.

[@mikeschmalz2031]

Would be great if we could link or sync the APRS BBS with the Meshtastic BBS, making it one and the same, so you could access it with whatever device you have handy.

[@The_Comms_Channel]

@@mikeschmalz2031 I agree and something I've thought about. We just need to figure out how to handle the whole unlicensed/licensed side of things.

[@mikeschmalz2031]

@@The_Comms_Channel That's a good point. Thinking about this though, if I control the APRS BBS, when they sync, that's MY traffic, even though it's enscapsulation of third party traffic. I use my callsign on the BBS, but it doesn't do anything until a licensed ham initiates remote control of my aprs station at that point. I think it's OK so long as nothing done on the Meshtastic side will cause the APRS radio to fire. Store and forward is OK, that's just third party traffic.

[@C0VVB3LL]

You think this would work with the tid h3?

[@The_Comms_Channel]

It could but you would need something like a DigiRig to connect between the radio and phone. I'll dig mine up and test it out with my H3

[@mikeschmalz2031]

A solution for the duplicate message problem: generate a small message serial number that increments while the BBS is running, maybe two characters. If I am doing the math correctly, two characters with all combinations of a-z, A-Z, and 0-9 would be 3844 combinations, which should be plenty for most uses.

[@The_Comms_Channel]

@@mikeschmalz2031 good idea. I wonder if that would work in the part of the packet where the software/hardware type goes. That's currently where the STANDARD_CALL goes though.

[@mikeschmalz2031]

@@The_Comms_Channel Not sure, I was just thinking to sacrifice a couple characters of message space.

[@The_Comms_Channel]

I'll explore that and see what works! Thanks!

[@JDtheEE]

So you remade BPQ32 packet?

[@The_Comms_Channel]

Similar concept, just using APRS

[@JDtheEE]

@@The_Comms_Channel That's awesome, but why not use BPQ32 (which IG from a network topology it's based on NET/ROM)

[@The_Comms_Channel]

This will work directly on APRS radios and APRS apps so it won't require users to have a computer for traditional BBS use. Easier and more portable.

[@ManuelPinner]

I do have a Kenwood D75A,

[@The_Comms_Channel]

It's a great and very capable radio

[@dieselstruck]

We need more stuff like Meshtastic and Sideband on Ham radio. I love the Meshtastic and Sideband concepts but I detest working with the LoRa boards. I feel they are nott reliable and that they are hit and miss. At least sideband can be interfaced with ham radio.

[@ibuildsheds5654]

Huh?

[@greenpotatochip]

Radio becoming the Internet in 1990

[@The_Comms_Channel]

The 90's were great. Time to bring it back 😄

[@NeoFalangistaPR]

Can it run on Termux?

[@The_Comms_Channel]

Its a Python script so it will need to be run on something that has Python installed

[@christurner68]

So many devices to send a message, does not seem very practical🤔

[@The_Comms_Channel]

Not really that bad. Person hosting BBS: (2 devices in this example) Radio + TNC + Computer (TNC + Computer are just one device in this case with Direwolf TNC software running on the computer) BBS End User: (1 device) Radio + TNC All of these APRS capable radios have a TNC built into them so it's just one device for them. If you have a radio with a Bluetooth TNC, you can connect that to your phone if you like, but this is still only two devices (and one you likely already have on you; a phone)

[@C-141B_FE]

In the clear, unencrypted.

[@The_Comms_Channel]

Yes

[@carltonsiple1876]

U should get with KM6LYW to have him implement this in the DigiPi😮

[@The_Comms_Channel]

That would be awesome! Still have a bit of work to do on it, but it'll be on GitHub soon.