"Yesterday" was the dawn of packet radio. It was in the mid-1980's. How time has flown! Coupled with the boom of the PC, computer networks, the Internet, Local Area Networks, microwave and radio technologies, hams began to experiment with various protocols and adding a Terminal Node Controller (TNC) to their VHF/UHF radios. Why not? Voice repeaters were flourishing and many new hams came into the ranks. TNCs could be had for $50 and a whole industry sprang up to deliver more sophisticated controllers to the amateur community! The X.25 protocol was developed into the AX.25 protocol and hams were off and running! Who cared that the PCs cost $1500! Hams had something cheap to explore for ham radio!

            In our area of the USA, one of the first groups to seize on the possibilities of linking hams to cover a wide geographical network was the Northeast Digital Association (NEDA). The group consisted of more technically driven hams who constructed radio links, defined the basics of networking, and published handbooks and wrote technical articles to promote packet experimentation. From this core group, a network was constructed covering vast areas of the Northeast. Packet enthusiasts were even finding mountain tops, and towers to set up equipment. The old timers remember that Mount Washington hosted a packet node linking Canada to the Northeast area!

            Of significance, the members met and discussed how packet could be applied. NEDA was a forum where both technologists and users came together. The main group of users were Emergency Communications who understood the value of using this new technology into Public Safety. This group also provided resources, including towers and high locations, for further development of radio links to cover remote areas. Prior to this, very expensive microwave links were used by Public Safety and commercial users costing $100Ks to buy and operate. Yet the packet community was working with $150 radios and $100 controllers with VHF/UHF antennas. The dream of NEDA was to create an all amateur radio network using radio links throughout the region, and it became largely successful. It promoted basic data communications, and operated on a privately funded network.

            While the fundamentals of TNCs hooked into VHF/UHF radios has not changed that much into the 21st century, the world of networking changed dramatically with the introduction of the Internet. The Internet uses a different kind of protocol suite. The Internet technologies required powerful computers, different kinds of interfaces to utilize radios that could send data faster and a vast array of applications were developed. One important happening, and perhaps controversial to some, was the foresight to obtain a Class A domain network for "hams only" and hosted by ucsd.edu. Hams could rub shoulders with the IBMs, DECs, Microsofts of the world with its own space in the Internet!

            The NETCPA came into being to experiment with the more ubiquitous tcp/ip protocol to improve the networking possibilities of radio networks established by NEDA. The words JNOS, TNOS became favorite applications. MFNOS, written by our member K2MF, in its early development (and continuing today) allowed the use of DOS computers to be very powerful to the hobbyists. The introduction of Linux operating systems created additional paths for hams to experiment and look towards amateur based applications of newer kinds such as VoIP technologies.

            Today, the NETCPA has members who have experimented with hybrid protocols such as Xnet and FlexNet that bridge the radio networks established  earlier. Today, a few of the members have established Internet nodes to bridge extremely wide area packet networks that radio links have yet to be developed while serving the local communities in a typical 20-30 mile radius.

            NETCPA, like the earlier NEDA, also has to grapple with the needs of the user community, and many of the developments by members have sought to establish procedures and protocols to meet their needs. Likewise another group has sought to develop faster radios, or TNCs with built in radios, and even embarked on a 1 Mbps radio kits for back haul. The fundamental thread was, and is, the continuation of the use of the tcp/ip protocols to build  amateur radio packet networks with exciting applications. Thus the NETCPA group has become a coalition of users, data networking, and radio/antenna construction using ham radio to it's fullest extent.