TheSkywaves


GB7CIP Amateur Radio International Gateway.

Mail forwarding over AX25, NetRom, IP and SMTP  via HF PACTOR over
Amateur Radio Short Wave bands, VHF, UHF, amprnet wireless and internet links.

G4APL MaintainedUK AX25 BBS Listings 
G4APL MaintainedGB7CIP Forwarding (pdf)

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TheNET

 G4APL Paul and G8DTQ/G0SYR had used TheNet software on their 16 Nodes, and Routers since 1988. 

During early 2000 it was decided to convert all the GB7CP,GB7CR and GB7CIP TNC's (Terminal Node Controller) to use JKiss EPROM's controlled by the Servers.

Looking back though the G4APL archives we see that versions we have used. As we experimented with the AX25 (Amateur X25) and TCP/IP data modes we tried most versions and stayed with X1J4 that incorporated a TCP/IP stack.

These are just some of the variants that have been tried and tested in the early days of Amateur Packet Radio

TheNet MiniConvers December 1988
This was run a APLTLK (Apple Talk as it became to be known)

TheNet Version 1 Series from 1988
TheNet Version 2 Series from 1990 TheNet X1G
TheNet 2.06 TheNet X1H Release1
TheNet 2.08 TheNet X1J  Release 1
TheNet 2.09 TheNet X1J2 Release 2
TheNet 2.10 August 1992 TheNet X1J4 Release 4 1992

 

Some comments by G4APL related to TCPIP.  In the London area (1990's) we had 70cm 9600bd amprnet TCPIP network. That provided 70cm links from the South Coast across London to the Thames Valley then to Winchester. What we found that large data frames were failing.  After Investigation it was found that the BPQ IP and TheNet stacks used as IP Routers,  did not handle large frames with the default parameter values. Due to not handling the 'More Flag'. Hence dropping data by not passing it through the Router IP stack.

To get round this we agreed to use MTU 576 and a Window of two frames.  Worked very well.  Though networking outside this area, The rest of the amprnet TCPIP world were using MTU 256 and MSS 216 and Window of 432 Bytes

The X1J4 Eproms MTU configurations were amended to

MTU 576 576 236 1024 1024 and burnt in to the eproms.

G4APL combined all the G8KBB's X1J4 documents in the release into one adobe pdf searchable document for ease of use.

File size 209 Kbytes X1J4 Manual