EASTNET: A Year Later

Bob Bruninga WB4APR59 Southgate Ave

Annapolis, MD 21401

The original goal of EASTNET to linkthe eastern seaboard from Washington DC toBoston was met more or less on August 6,1984 when packets were exchanged via therepeater path WB4APR-6 in Elk NeckMaryland, WA2LQQ-0 in Warwick NY, WORLI-0in Westford MA, and KD2S-1 in Lowell MA.Since that time numerous alternate pathshave been exercised but the saturation ofthe primary link frequency of 145.01 MHzduring prime evening hours has preventedroutine end-to-end multi-hop paths.

About the time that saturation of145.01 MHz occurred, the emergence of WORLItype bulletin boards based on the XEROX 820system brought about a new pattern ofoperation which helped ease the multi-hoploading. The WORLI bulletin board systems(PBBS'S) include an auto-forwarding featurewhich allows the PBBS's to update eachother with messages destined forindividuals homed on their local PBBS. Byprogramming these PBBS's to auto-forward onthe link frequencies during non prime timehours, the need for long distance multi-hopexchanges was minimized. Individuals withmessages for a distant user need only postthe message on the local PBBS and at thesame time pick up his mail using a directp a t h or at most a single hop connection.So the result of auto-forwarding is a twofold reduction in link traffic byencouraging all messages to be posted onlocal paths, and forcing the multi-hopregional forwarding to occur during offhours.

The next stepon 145.01 is to

in relieving congestionmake the PBBS s frequency

agile so that they are available to localusers on a local frequency such as 145.05during prime time and move over to 145.01only during off hours at scheduled periodsfor auto-forwarding. In EASTNET we havealready moved the WB4APR-5 HF BRIDGE systemover to 145.05 and the local PBBS of KS3Qover to 145.09. The W3IWI PBBS remains on145.01 to serve the link traffic untilfrequency agility has been achieved.

HF activity is stabalizing on10,147.900 KHz with the WB4APRO bridge intoWashington, K7PYKO into Tuscan, WSTDO intoChicago, and WORLIO into Masachusetts.K7PYKO shifts between 20M and 30M asconditions dictate and WORLIO comes up whentime permits.

At a recent roadside gathering ofenthusiasts from Virginia, Maryland,Pennsylvania, and New Jersey, theMid-Atlantic Packet Repeater Council(MAPRC) was formed to allow a unifiedrepresentation of regional packetinterests. An arbitrary territory of 100miles radius about the primary linkdigipeater of WB4APR6 was chosen as thearea of responsibility. A similar group,the Tri-State Packet Repeater Council(TSPRC) has recently been formed to coverNorthern New Jersey, New York, andConnecticut.

To encourage use of 220 MHz we willsoon be putting a 221.02 MHz piggy-backradio on the WB4APR-6 digipeater. The 221MHz transceiver will be connected to thesame TNC but will also be under subtonecontrol to link directly to 145.01 avoidingthe digipeater for stations which are soconfigured. The subtone control frequencyis the reverse channel tone of 367 HZ whichis already built into most 202 modems.Another possibility is the use of dual portsoftware which is just becomming availableto allow a XEROX 820 system to serve bothchannels. Our plans still include a numberof wideband channels and narrowbandchannels according to the following plan:

Note that this is the same as what weproposed last year except that the narrowband channels have moved down 10 KHz tomatch the existing 20 KHz channel spacingon the band.

On the following maps all of the knownwide area use packet repeaters areindicated as well as the PBBS's and gatewaystations. Indications of 220 activityshould be considered to be in addition tothe existing two meter operations at thesame locat ion. These maps are not expectedto be 100 percent accurate and weapologize for all those who were omittedbut we just wanted to give a quick overviewof packet activity in various areas of thecountry. We will attempt to update thesemaps periodically and make them availablenext year if you will help by forwardingany permanent updates to the above address.

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