PPP, HAM radio and a TNC: Internet access!

Has anyone considered running PPP and connecting to a HAM TNC? Using this method, you can be on the Internet while in your car, at speeds around 1200 to 9600bps. If we could get a small keyboard and a simple display driver, we could do things like receive simple text messages, notification of new email, etc.

Membership in a HAM club is generally required in order to interconnect to the Internet. See your local HAM club for details on membership, becoming a HAM, TNC modem support, speeds, coverage areas, etc.

As I see it, we need:

PPP in the kernel, and a working pppd to bring up the connection.
Display support for a basic shell prompt, and some termcap support.
Support for an available and small wireless keyboard.
SNPPd support perhaps to receive text messages or email notifications and such.

Just being able to get notifications, run ping and a few other tools would be really nice for a network admin who's expected to keep a bunch of hosts online.

Please followup if you have ideas, or are working in these directions.

-Dane

> Has anyone considered running PPP and connecting to a HAM TNC?
> Using this method, you can be on the Internet while in your car,
> at speeds around 1200 to 9600bps. If we could get a small keyboard
> and a simple display driver, we could do things like receive simple
> text messages, notification of new email, etc

I hadn't considered that, but I have got plans to communicate with my
mobile phone (Ericsson I888) over infra red. Since I already send the
subject of all new emails to the phone as SMS messages it would be
possible to retrieve these and perhaps speak them with a text to speech
interface such as speechd

It would also be possible to connect to the internet over ppp over IR
too. Maybe later...

Paul

> I hadn't considered that, but I have got plans to communicate with my
> mobile phone (Ericsson I888) over infra red.

The HAM TNC idea allows for full time connectivity at a reasonable rate of speed with no cellular costs, and without waiting for a dialup connection. It's just always up when the car is on!

Can you control the Ericson via the IR? If so, perhaps you could get it to spit the SMS out to the empeg for display, but why? I do like the text to speech idea, that's neato! It would be fun if the music faded out when you got an SMS, and the text was spoken.

-Dane

> The HAM TNC idea allows for full time connectivity at a reasonable rate
> of speed with no cellular costs

Very true.

> Can you control the Ericson via the IR?

Yes you can control every function of it including updating the phonebook,
reading/deleting sms messages, dialing for a voice connection, data, fax, etc.
I use it to connect my Linux laptop to the net when I'm travelling.

Paul

I've tried IP over AX25 using 1200 baud on 2m FM (using PC rather than Empeg) and it is extremely slow. Ping times were measured in tens of seconds. The shared channel nature of amateur packet means that a 1200 baud link works out to a lot less when you consider that it's half duplex with lots of users and many packet collisions.

Also, for IP routing to work you'd need to always be in range of the same hub which on 2m limits you to tens of miles. If you just used AX25 rather than IP over AX25 you'd be able to roam further, but you'd still need to know a path back to your "home" node where your mail etc. would be stored until you collected it.

Don't forget that in the UK at least no 3rd party traffic is permitted unless it has been manually approved by a licenced amateur. This rules out receiving even simple things such as the subject lines of emails.

Sorry to be so negative.

Cheers,

Mark.

The project I am working on involves hooking up a CDPD modem, which will give me up to 19.2Kbps and a static IP address. CDPD service is growing, and prices falling, but at $40-50/month unlimited in the U.S. it's pretty reasonable for a dedicated wireless Internet connection.

I hope to post more details soon.