Packet Radio on a Macbook Air

I've always had an interest in packet radio. Likely due to the fact that I got into computers and radios at roughly the same time. Shortly after I started building antennas and getting on HF, I was also building 486 computers and getting onto the Internet. Back then I had some strongly-held beliefs in the Mac/PC war. But, to be fair, a lot of Apple products back then were hot overpriced garbage. Today I'm firmly on Team Mac and happy to buy hot overpriced quality that just works. (At least I'm honest.)

Despite my interest in Packet, I was never able to get into it. Expensive hardware, combined with an elmer who thought digital modes were borderline-evil, kept me from dipping my toes into the world of packet. By the time I did have the money for hardware, VHF packet nodes had all but vanished in my area. Sure, there was APRS, but I see no pleasure in spending money for people to basically see where my car is.

Fast-forward a few years and I was again at my elmer's place. It had been hit by a tornado, and gear was literally scattered all over. "Take whatever you want, it's just lying out there and the tweakers keep taking stuff at night." Among the rotors, towers, and random lengths of coax, I found something I'd never expect: An MFJ-1278 packet modem. It was like finding all-male nudie magazines in your dad's closet. I never asked him about it (I suspect he got it in trade to trade to someone else and never used it) but I did take it home.

Excited to get on HF packet (and even that antiquated old standby, RTTY) I took it home, opened the box, and realized I didn't have a single way to use this thing. RS-232? How do you adapt that to a USB port without a whole bunch of headaches? And the microphone adapters I'd have to daisy-chain... ugh. So to the basement it went, to rest on the shelf with my other outdated equipment, where I store things that I just might need if everything electronic made after 1990 up and dies.

And, again, I put my interest in packet radio on the back shelf of my mind.

But fear not! There is another way, and I already have the gear! You see, it's possible to use a soundcard to emulate an external hardware modem. I had tried this as a youth, but none of the computers I built had the horsepower to do it. AGWPE and the like made them lock up tighter than a bank on Sunday.

But today? I have good computers. With RAM measured in gigabytes. Processors that can do more than one thing at a time. I use them somewhat regularly for the so-called "sound card modes," mostly FT-8. (Gone are the days of keyboard-to-keyboard conversations with PSK-31, I guess?) The premise is simple - rig audio out to computer audio in, computer audio out to rig audio in. A simple interface to isolate the two, if you want, and you're good to go. Just turn on your VOX and you don't even have to worry about keying your PTT with the computer.

Apparently, it's much easier these days to setup a "sound card modem" than it was back 30 years ago. Not necessarily install-point-click-boom easy, but easier none the less. Lots of guys do it with PCs. So now my question becomes: How hard is it on a Mac? My experience with ham radio on my MacBook has been that it's not an issue of quality or ease, but availability. While you might find 30 programs for any given activity on a PC, you'll have maybe four or five for a Mac. And they're usually not free, either. 

So a quick "packet radio soundmodem" search on Duck Duck Go turned up the following site, which looks fairly promising. And, even better, the page is less than a year old, so the steps likely aren't outdated yet. (I'm looking at you, BCDX, CCLogger, and the countless cluster programs that point to a dead page.)

Packet Radio Fun on the Mac: A Beginning

Now, it clearly does not look like a happy-go-lucky, GUI experience... but what's the fun in that? I cut my teeth on Mandrake, Red Hat, and Debian back in the late 90's and early aughts. Up until a year ago, when I rearranged the hamshack, I had an Ubuntu box that I would SSH into so that I could read my email with Mutt. 

In other words, I don't shy away from a CLI... I crave it.

Over the coming days... weeks.... months... I will dive into trying to get packet up-and-going with my MacBook and IC-706. If that goes well, perhaps I'll tempt fate and try getting my Ubuntu box back up and running and try packet with it as well. Who knows, maybe someday you'll be reading this blog on AMPRnet / Network44.