Zero Retries 0074
2022-11-25 - VarAC v6.2.4, GreenCube - Orbiting Garden and Amateur Radio Payload
Zero Retries is an independent email newsletter about technological innovation in Amateur Radio, for a self-selecting niche audience. It’s free (as in beer) to subscribe.
Steve Stroh N8GNJ, Editor
Jack Stroh, Late Night Assistant Editor Emeritus
In this issue:
- Request To Send
- VarAC v6.2.4
- GreenCube - Orbiting Garden and Amateur Radio Payload
- ZR > BEACON
- Feedback Loop
- Join the Fun on Amateur Radio
- Closing The Channel
Request To Send
Apologies for Zero Retries 0073. Admittedly it was a rush job resulting from a quadfecta of significant time sucks occurring in a single week - health issues, house issues, vehicle issues, and travel. Thus I didn’t devote the normal amount of time it takes to do (what I consider) a quality job of Zero Retries 0073. I didn’t provide any context or commentary for We Use Baofeng's “Heart” For Our Projects, but my worse offense was Thought Experiment - Amateur Radio Social Network - On Amateur Radio. My treatment of packet radio networks in the 2020s really needs a deep dive, probably multiple issues of Zero Retries. In particular I should have discussed what TAPRN is doing in more depth, including having an on-the-record exchange with Tadd Torborg KA2DEW of TAPRN to understand and explain the design decisions behind TARPN’s network architecture. As I mentioned to one email correspondent, as the Editor of Zero Retries, I can grant myself a do-over on that article, and will do so in a future issue.
I made ample time for this issue given that publication day will be a busy one for our family as we’ll be shifting our (US) Thanksgiving holiday from Thursday to Saturday and most of Friday will consist of a four round trip to SeaTac airport. Thus there was much butt-in-chair time expended getting this issue ready in plenty of time and set to auto-publish. When I was satisfied with it, I looked up to see not just the “Near email length limit banner”, but the dreaded “Too long for email” banner. There’s no fudging that, so I was forced to jettison one article and one ZR > Beacon item to a future issue. Some days, I just have too much fun writing Zero Retries.
Speaking of packet radio networks in the 2020s, this recent video seems on point, touching on legacy packet radio, mentions VARA, and what TARPN is doing.
