On 4/8/21 6:48 pm, Rob PE1CHL via 44Net wrote:
Like you I learned *a lot* from watching the traces of AX.25 packet radio! I got a lot of understanding about how those protocols work from it.
Yep, 1200bps AX.25 was a fantastic learning tool, and the first time I fired up NOS and could decode IP headers showed me a whole new world. The fact that ham TNCs and software tended to default to monitor (packet sniffing) mode when not connected to anything back in the day helped too. That also made the output of tcpdump seem rather familiar, years later.
Of course today people still use APRS, and AX.25 is often used as a framing protocol for satellite telemetry so you see it often mentioned in specifications and being used on networks like SatNOGS.
I'm one of those many people who use APRS.
I do not want to say "we should not use AX.25 anymore" but merely that it isn't really the topic of this list, and never has been. So people reading about networking and routing all the time and expecting more about AX.25 likely are in the wrong place here.
Yes, these days, AX.25 is a relatively small part of 44net's activities. It's there, but definitely not dominant anymore
I fully agree: there are always new things to experiment and tinker, and sometimes old things that can be brought alive again.
Ham radio is good at advancing the art, while preserving older modes no longer in commercial use, like a mix between a community laboratory and a living museum. I quite like that mix.