PBPG
History and Status
Palm Beach Packet Group South Florida Packet Network White Noise Links
The Florida Packet Network consists of FPAC, ROSE and variations of NETROM that are trunked together to form the network. What is shown on the network maps is the FPAC and ROSE portions of the network.
The West Palm Switch, originally known as WA4HXZ, is presently operating under the club call sign - K4PKT. For the past several years the Palm Beach Packet Group (PBPG) have put most of their efforts in the ROSE and FPAC networking topologies.
The first networking software to come to the PBPG (summer of 1991) was ROSE, it is special software that replaces the TNC code which normally runs a TNC. Once the EPROM is replaced with one containing the ROSE code and the TNCs) are programmed with routing and other info, ROSE provides connections to distant destinations with just one command string from the user. Several TNC's are needed to make up a switch, these are connected together using a diode matrix or an active matrix. In the beginning the PBPG switch consisted of three TNC's (ports), this grew to six ports by the fall of 1997 when the system was converted to FPAC.
FPAC is a PC based enhancement of ROSE that That was developed in France. It can be operated in either the networking mode or as a node. It offers more flexibility and is much faster in thruput, which allows for faster connections and data transfers. This is accomplished by the absence of a diode matrix and the much faster pc moving the data around. The TNC's are converted to KISS mode and basically just handle the modem interface to the radios.
The present K4PKT switch consists of the six port FPAC switch and a
APRS setup.
The ports for K4PKT-9/8 are:
Port
code
Frequency Description
1
561655
145.030 Local Lan - 1200b
2
561793
145.630 Local Lan - 9600b
3
561111
223.xxx Alternate trunk to Boca -
1200b
4
561113
445.xxx BBS forwarding - 9600b
5
561112
440.xxx Stuart Trunk - 9600b
6
561114
446.xxx Boca Raton Trunk - 9600b