DIGITAL CONNECTION

Build it and They Will Come, But There’s a Catch: You Have to Build it and Get it to Work

The old saying asks, “How do you eat an elephant?”

“One bite at a time,” is usually the punchline. The same goes for building a chat network: One byte at a time. <groan – Ed.>

In my most recent column (July 2021), I wrote about the chat network, which happens to use packet technology to link local hams together to form a real-time, always-on, chat network. Kind of like a 2-meter FM repeater, but in keyboard mode. Not a thing for everyone, to be sure, but frommy reader mail, it’s a compellingly popular idea. This month I intended to write about the process for getting network nodes up and running. But man plans and God laughs, so instead of a triumphant piece on how easy it is, I need to show that the road to success is full of potholes.

Earlier this year, I asked on the TARPN mailing list <> if anyone in northern Atlanta was interested in forming a TARPN, and I got a couple