Skip to content

Packet terminal & BBS

This page shows you how to use the Shack's packet apps: connect to a BBS or a node over your own TNC, and send mail through the instance's BBS. To decode a raw frame, use the packet decoder in Tools and plugins. It is for operators who know packet radio; no server setup is involved.

Connect to a BBS or node

The Packet terminal is a multi-channel connected-mode terminal for a KISS TNC on USB or Bluetooth Low Energy, such as a Mobilinkd. It needs a Chromium-based browser: USB works on a computer, Bluetooth on a computer or an Android phone. Browsers on an iPhone or iPad have neither.

Connecting transmits

A connect keys your radio under your callsign, so the terminal connects only for a verified callsign (Verify your callsign) and with your consent for this tab. Until then it listens: channel 0 shows everything your TNC hears. Read On-air etiquette and rules first.

  1. Open Shack → Packet terminal.
  2. Choose USB or Bluetooth, switch on or plug in the TNC, and select Open KISS TNC…. Pick the device in the browser's dialog. Channel 0 shows everything the TNC hears.
  3. Answer Allow when the app asks whether this tab may transmit through the TNC. Receive only keeps it listening; Allow transmit, or the first Connect, asks again. The consent ends when you close the tab or the TNC, select Receive only, or sign out (Allow transmitting for this tab).
  4. Type a callsign in connect to… and select Connect. The connection opens on a channel of its own.
  5. Type a line and select Send.

Every frame the terminal sends lights TX on the radio chip in the top bar and joins Recent transmissions in Settings → My radio (browser), marked Terminal. Close TNC releases the TNC. ↓ .ans saves the current pane as ANSI art.

Tools on the terminal's sessions

A station can connect to you as well: the terminal accepts the call on a channel of its own while you may transmit. The tools you run can then greet it, answer the commands they open to connected stations (such as INFO or NOTE <text>), ring when it connects and time the link. On a session you opened, tools only listen. A tool's lines go out under the same gate as yours and are marked with the tool's title in Recent transmissions (Tools on connected sessions).

Use the instance's BBS

The BBS app reads and writes the instance's mail store. Bulletins are open to everyone. Your mail needs you signed in with an account that holds the callsign.

Send mail

  1. Open Shack → BBS and select Compose.
  2. Choose the Type: Personal, Bulletin or Traffic (NTS).
  3. Enter To: a callsign, or ALL, BLN… for a bulletin.
  4. Enter an optional Subject and the Message, then select Send.

Personal mail waits in the BBS until its addressee reads it here or by connecting to the packet BBS, or until FBB forwarding passes it to the addressee's home BBS. FBB forwarding carries your mail only once your callsign is verified; until then it stays on this BBS. It is never sent over APRS or MeshCom. Sent shows its state: read, forwarded to a partner BBS, or waiting. Bulletins also reach the instances this one federates with.

Read mail and bulletins

  1. Select Inbox or Bulletins. Unread mail carries a dot.
  2. Select a message to read it, with its sender, recipient, BID and date. A thread shows all its messages.
  3. Select Reply to answer in the same thread.

The instance's node and connected-mode BBS

When the sysop runs a NET/ROM node or the connected-mode BBS, you reach them with the Packet terminal like any other station. Connect to the node's callsign or alias, and use C <callsign> at its prompt to go on to another station. The connected-mode BBS answers with the F6FBB command set (list, read, send, kill, help) over the same mail store as the BBS app. Both run on the instance's ingest box, so your tools never answer on their sessions: the BBS and the node keep their own commands. The BBS and NET/ROM node apps show the panels of tools that target them. The node's and the BBS's callsigns come from the sysop; how they are set up is under Packet: BBS & NET/ROM node.

Next