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Santa Barbara Amateur Radio Club
Packet Operations

General QSOs
BBS Operations
DX Cluster

Remote Control
Band Plan Usage
APRS

General QSOs

Amateur Radio Operators who use packet for QSOs generally do one of the following:

Engage in keyboard to keyboard QSOs with other stations, either between two operators or, in unproto mode, with a number of stations.
Transmit short text files from station to station. (A good number of articles for Key-Klix, our monthly club newsletter, have been submitted by this means.)

BBS Operations

Operators connect to the K6TZ BBS in order to receive or send personal messages to other amateur radio operators around the world, to send or receive NTS/ARRL type written traffic, or to read files from our extensive file library.

DX Cluster

While not strictly an SBARC activity as such, a good number of local hams monitor the DX Cluster packet network for the latest information on what hot DX is coming today. In Santa Barbara, this system outputs on 144.910 MHz., under the sponsorship of Ray Benny, N6VR.

Control

Radio remote control using packet frames instead of touch tone sequences is both legal and possible but usage of packet for such activity has not been widespread.

Band Plan

The Board of Directors of the Santa Barbara Radio Club encourages all amateurs who operate packet to do so according to the published band plan. Contact the SCDCC for further information.

APRS

All APRS operations in California now take place on 144.390 MHz. You can monitor this frequency with nothing more than a typical packet station. However, to get the full benefit of APRS, you should have a PC with either WINAPRS 226 or later, with the Precision Mapping CD, or with APRS + SA 9.22 or later, with the Street Atlas 5.0 or later.

With either one of the above two packages you can locate fix stations on any of the maps your CD provides and what is more, you can track mobile stations as they drive up the coast. Monitoring by internet connection is even possible.

WINAPRS and APRS+SA are distributed as shareware from the TAPR.ORG web page, and others, while the Precision Mapping and Street Atlas are commercial programs, each of which comes on a CD.

SBARC Repeaters

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Santa Barbara Amateur Radio ClubPacket Operations