[FARC] packet net problems

[Rolan O. Clark]

Jeff and all,

Let me go into some detail about my experience with packet nets last year I think it was, it wasn't pretty HI  HI.

1. Packet only sends a complete sentence at a time,  not individual  characters like  rtty or psk31 , either when you hit   enter  or  the end of a line comes up.
2. Then it has to ACK the packets unless you are unproto but even then it only sends a line at  a time not individual  characters  like  rtty or psk31.
3. What happens is when all  stations can't  hear each other and with the wait for sentences to be constructed(typed) and sent it leaves everyone in the dark
as to what is happening.
4. When we had a 'node' on the mountain, we could  give it a command and it would repeat without  using the digi V command and that was worse because of the constant ack/nak and soon the whole screen was filled  with partial messages and people not  knowing  what was  going on and sending  queries to try and determine what the status was and as net control I  lost control every time we tried HI HI, and it wasn't the fault of the participants, it was just all the back  forth  with packet and the screen being filled with partial messages as each line or packet was displayed.
5. If  packet  as a net was used peer to peer then one would have to have  a way of  going  unproto to see who all was  there before calling  each  station  as a packet station and the and connects and disconnects to  work each station would be very tedious to do and watch.

So, I  finally said, I GIVE UP hi hi and decided that packet was best used a a pbbs , a bbs or peer to peer. 

I think its best if everyone would  be encouraged to use  the pbbs as a message board during the week , just to get familiar  with it.

One thing I  haven't figured out yet, the tnc I am using, a Kantronic Plus , won't  let more that one person into the pbbs at a time but that may be normal. I may need bbs software to be able to handle multiple  checkins to the bbs  at at time but that may be one of the diff between a pbbs and a bbs.

Just some of my experiences, comments and opinions.

Any comments welcome,

73 de rolan w3fdk