This week, let's surf to a Web site that hopes to help revive the US packet radio network.

Charles Brabham, N5PVL, e-mailed me about a new Web site that's dedicated to packet radio networking and networkers. He intends his USPN Web site to serve as a resource and a refuge for people who want to build packet networks and get a national digital network back on the front burner again.

N5PVL built the new USPN Web site to help build a new US packet radio network.

"Over the past 10 years, it has been difficult to find a place to discuss packet networking without the conversation becoming lost in the noise level," N5PVL wrote. "It is much like trying to discuss Morse code. At the USPN site, packet networking remains in the spotlight as the primary concern of the Web site and its forums. It never gets lost in the noise there."

N5PVL added, "A lot of hams miss the US packet network and some of them are out doing something about it. I hope that the USPN Web site will give US packet networkers a common ground upon which they can keep up to date on developments, build consensus, develop acquaintances with other networkers, and work to tie the different networks together into a coherent US national digital network."

The Web site has a forum for discussing packet networking, a library of informative articles related to packet and packet networking, and a large collection of useful hyperlinks. There is a standalone "Network" hyperlink on the home page of the site that provides links to known US packet radio networks.

Currently, the network hyperlink include the Arkansas Packet Network (APN), Northeastern States FlexNet Network, Southeastern Emergency Digital Association Networks (SEDAN), Florida SEDAN, Washington State HF Pactor System and ARES/RACES Oregon Packet Information Web sites. If your packet network is among the missing, contact N5PVL (webmaster@uspacket.org), who is the Webmaster at USPN.

Until next time, keep on surfin'

Editor's note: Stan Horzepa, WA1LOU, resides in downtown Wolcott, Connecticut, and is a member of the QQCC (QST quarter century club), i.e., he has been a QST writer for 25 years. Since getting his ticket in 1969, Stan has sampled nearly every entrée in the Amateur Radio menu (including a stint as Connecticut Section Manager), but he keeps coming back to his favorite preoccupations: VHF and packet radio. As a result, he runs a 2-meter APRS digipeater and weather station from his mountaintop location in central Connecticut. Stan has been a long time advocate of using computers with Amateur Radio and wrote programs to dupe contests and calculate antenna bearings way back in 1978. Today, he uses his Mac to surf the Internet searching for that perfect ham radio Web page. To contact Stan, send e-mail to wa1lou@arrl.net.

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