[Coco] Ham Radio

[jimcox at miba51.com]

John:

Drop me a line some time, I'd like to learn more about 
packet radio.

Jim

On Mon, 27 Oct 2003 17:12:55 -0800
  "John Guin" <johnguin at hotmaill.com> wrote:
>Hello all,
>
>I was reading Jim Cox's mail about not pursuing ham radio 
>work with the Coco
>in the Seattle/Bellevue area.
>
>I'm also a ham radio operator in the Seattle area, and 
>have had antenna
>restrictions to deal with as well.
>
>Back when I had my packet radio set up, I used a 19" long 
>antenna made from
>#12 wire and got reception and transmission good enough 
>from West Seattle to
>the node closest to my condo - about 3 miles away.  I 
>used my old 2 meter
>handheld, and it worked very well.  It only had one watt 
>of transmitting
>power.  That's all you need to get started on packet
>
>IIRC, there was actually a packet article or two in the 
>Rainbow, but I'm not
>sure how useful the information would be.  The packet 
>modem does most of the
>work, though, so the easiest thing to do with a Coco now 
>would be to use a
>terminal program to log data.  Since the Coco uses a 
>standard voltage on the
>serial port, it is not as hard to connect the modem as 
>some other 8 bit
>machines (Commodore, I'm talking to you).
>
>Anyway, the point of this letter is not to let antenna 
>restrictions keep you
>off the air.  Unless you were wanting to get involved 
>with Clover or some of
>the other low frequency modes, a really cheap "coat 
>hanger" antenna sitting
>in a window is all you really need.
>
>73,
>John Guin
>KB7ZJW
>
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