Bulletins from the Pacific Packet Radio Society - page 020

Please consider all of these and winnow out those you can't implement -- but I guarantee I can find a software use for everything here, if you'll provide it.

Thanks for listening. -- John (GNU)

FILE QST.82.01.23-O.WB2CAM

The Proceedings of the East Coast Packet Radio Standards Meeting
Flemington, N.J.
23 January 1982

The meeting commenced at about 10:30 with some opening comments by Paul Rinaldo, W4RI. At this time, an agenda which he had prepared, was distributed.

Dave Borden, K8MMO gave a presentation on the fundamentals of packet radio. His talk cleared up some of the mystique surrounding bit-synchronous protocols and the devices designed to implement them. It was noted that the Intel 8273 and the Western Digital 1933 were the only two devices which allowed for the derivation of the clock from the NRZI-encoded data. Dave also brought up the legality of bit-stuffing and the reaction of certain FCC personnel to some of the grey areas into which we are headed. The conclusion was that the FCC is open to petitions regarding cw identification, and to requests for authorization to use modulation techniques varying from the present bit=baud regulations.

The FCC also feels that a single frequency digipeater is in fact a repeater of the time-diversity flavor. Therefore, it is important to remember that these machines must be placed in the repeater sub-bands. This brings up a question as to whether a mailbox station on the lowbands is a repeater. It should be no ted that the difference between a mailbox and a repeater is that the relay delay time for the mailbox is longer. Some thoughts on this point would be appreciated by this writer.

The next presentation, was made by Terry Fox, WB4JFI. Terry's comments were on the hardware and software limitations of the Vancouver boa rd s and of the S-100 interface he has designed. It was determined that the Vancouver boards have a maximum link capacity of about 19.2 kilobits. It was made quite clear that for switching nodes, a new hardware design with more "horsepower" would be in order.

Several presentations followed in fairly rapid succession. These were made by representatives of the other groups.

Gwyn Reedy, W1BEL of the south Jersey group reported that several Vancouver boards had been completed and were in the testing phase.

Paul Newland, AD7I of the Holmdel group mentioned that he had 202 compatible modem and TNC designs which were in the process of release. He noted that the TNC was Z-80 based and used the Zilog SIO. This afforded the user two flexible serial interfaces in one package. Some software has been written and the boards do talk. Paul pointed out that the Zilog SIO does not

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