QRPBBB - Netnews over APRS

[Chris Baird]

Announcing a project that's looking for participants: By exploiting the
APRS digipeater mesh (which happens to be the one repeater service I can
reliably access here..) it could be possible to produce a national-scale
decentralized bulletin board system, using Good Old Netnews.

QRPBBB, it's called. Basically, it distributes Newsgroups over Packet
Radio.

There are a few packet BBS on-air... but none of them are near you.
QRPBBB can as a last resort exploit the Digipeater network to find other
stations/sites, and the store-and-forward process can allow distribution
to span the country. The existing PBBSes are also.. very 1983. Wouldn't
you prefer to write messages in your favourite text editor just like on
here..?

Obviously, this isn't tunneling about Usenet over APRS. There's its own
newsgroups, and uses the Distribution header to limit which messages go
where, and BOFHnet/Usenet-2 style filtering to /enforce/ post content
standards. (Yes, top-posting and 1-liner MeToos get automatically
dropped.) Needless traffic on the APRS system will be unpopular, and the
intention is not to be-- it is /ssllooww/ when it should be (30 minutes
to broadcast a post..) but other circumstances/frequencies does allow
for higher throughput.

The software is a few Python scripts, and otherwise requires a Unix
system with INN installed (either 1.7 or 2.x). Currently it's still a
very manual process of operation, due to being in the development phase
and testing while portable calls for things being done then and there,
but being more cron-friendly is an intention. And I want to mention the
code isn't complicated at all-- it's all very homebrew, and having
others being immediately able to do things with it is also a goal.

Remember how awesome it was when 1200 baud modems were the go? Do any of
my fellow Linux fanatics hate the Windows-ness of existing systems? How
about a Ham Radio forum that is exclusively on-air, and provides
opportunities for more amateur activity...

Please figure out what this link is about, and go from there:
http://o6veojxrfutdwwsriyxbsgimvrnwyzpezexo2g6q4pknutzvibt3rbqd.onion/QRPBBB/

--
Chris,, <vk2...@gmail.com>