Long before a pocket LoRa device could pass an encrypted text message through several nearby nodes, radio amateurs were building digital networks of their own. Packet radio divided information into small addressed blocks, sent them over amateur frequencies, checked them for errors and passed them through relay stations. Operators connected to local nodes, read bulletins, exchanged private mail and forwarded messages between cities. In the 1980s and early 1990s, this was often described as the amateur-radio internet before ordinary households had internet access.
That history is not merely nostalgic. Packet radio is still used for local data links, APRS, satellites, emergency communication and radio email. Its ideas also make modern systems such as Meshtastic easier to understand. Store-and-forward messaging, digital relays, routing and hop limits did not begin with LoRa. The implementations are different, but the family resemblance is real.
What is packet radio?
Packet radio is the transmission of digital data in discrete packets over radio. In amateur radio, the classic link-layer protocol is AX.25, a radio-oriented adaptation of concepts from the X.25 networking family. An AX.25 frame can contain source and destination amateur callsigns, relay addresses, control information, a data payload and an error-checking value. Depending on the type of exchange, a receiving station can acknowledge correctly received frames and request retransmission when data is lost.
That makes packet radio more than “typing sounds into a radio.” The radio provides the physical channel, a modem converts bits to and from audio or another radio waveform, and AX.25 organizes those bits into usable frames. Applications above AX.25 can provide keyboard chat, bulletins, personal mail, file transfer, telemetry, APRS, network nodes or even Internet Protocol links. The ARRL overview of digital data modes identifies AX.25 as the basic packet-radio protocol and lists the traditional operating speeds.
Because this normally takes place on amateur bands, transmitting requires the appropriate amateur-radio licence and compliance with national rules and band plans. Callsign identification is built into the culture and the protocol. Amateur radio also generally prohibits obscuring the meaning of messages, so ordinary packet networks should not be treated as private encrypted networks.
A brief history: the ham internet before the internet
Experimenters began adapting packet-switching ideas to amateur radio in the late 1970s. AX.25 version 2.0 was standardized in 1984, and the movement expanded rapidly during the 1980s. TAPR, originally Tucson Amateur Packet Radio, played a central role by developing hardware, publishing specifications and bringing experimenters together.
A typical operator had a computer or terminal, a Terminal Node Controller and a VHF or UHF transceiver. After tuning to a packet channel, the operator could connect to another station by callsign, enter a node or open a local packet BBS. Networks grew from isolated links into chains of digipeaters, intelligent nodes and interconnected mailboxes. TAPR records show that by early 1988 more than 1,000 NET/ROM nodes had been delivered worldwide.
The comparison with the early internet is useful but imperfect. Packet radio offered addressed data, shared channels, routing and electronic mail, yet most links were extremely slow and locally coordinated. A busy 1,200-baud channel was nothing like a modern broadband connection. Still, for someone exchanging electronic messages without a telephone line, commercial service or public internet account, it was extraordinary.
BBS systems and store-and-forward
A packet BBS, or Bulletin Board System, is a radio-accessible computer that stores messages for later retrieval. An operator connects, lists available bulletins, reads selected messages, leaves a personal message or posts information for a wider audience. A BBS can remain available while the intended recipient is away, which is the essence of store-and-forward: accept information now, retain it safely and forward or deliver it when a path becomes available.
Packet BBS software also exchanged mail with other BBS stations. Messages could move hop by hop during scheduled forwarding sessions, eventually reaching another region without sender and recipient being on the air simultaneously. Bulletins carried technical discussions, club notices, equipment listings, weather information and emergency traffic. Personal messages were addressed using callsigns and hierarchical BBS addressing conventions.
This was particularly well suited to radio. A weak or intermittent path did not need to support an uninterrupted human conversation. Each station could hold a message until the next link was usable. Modern BBS packages and node stacks such as FBB, BPQ and JNOS preserve much of this model, and small Linux computers have made it inexpensive to rebuild. The classic interface may look like a text terminal, but the underlying service remains practical wherever delayed delivery is acceptable.
Digipeaters and packet nodes
A digipeater is a digital repeater. It receives a complete packet, checks or decodes it and retransmits it. Unlike an analog voice repeater, which normally receives continuously on one frequency and simultaneously transmits audio on another, a simple packet digipeater usually works on a shared simplex channel: listen, receive, then retransmit. A packet can name one or more digipeaters in its path.
A node is more capable. Instead of blindly repeating every suitable frame, it can terminate the local connection, offer commands, maintain links to other nodes and switch a user toward a destination. This reduces the need for the user to manage every radio hop directly. Depending on its software, the same site may provide node, digipeater, BBS, chat, APRS or gateway functions.
Relaying has a cost. Every retransmission occupies the same scarce channel, and hidden transmitters may collide because they cannot hear one another. Long digipeater paths therefore reduce capacity and reliability. Packet operators learned early that “more hops” does not automatically mean “a better network”—a lesson that applies directly to LoRa mesh planning.
NET/ROM and ROSE: routing above AX.25
Basic AX.25 digipeating can carry a packet through a path selected by the sender, but it is not a complete dynamic routing system. As networks expanded, amateurs added network-layer software.
NET/ROM turned compatible TNCs and computers into network nodes. Nodes advertised destinations and link quality to neighbors, built routing tables and could select a useful next hop. Users connected to a local node and asked it to reach a remote node by its alias or callsign. Contemporary TAPR documentation describes NET/ROM’s automatic adaptive routing and compatibility with existing AX.25 digipeating.
ROSE took a more structured approach based on the X.25 network layer. A user could give the local switch a destination network address rather than manually naming every intermediate relay. The original ROSE switch paper describes an AX.25 link layer between radio stations with X.25 switching above it.
NET/ROM and ROSE were not simply alternate names for AX.25. AX.25 moved frames over individual radio links; these systems added network knowledge and routing. Modern Linux still documents support for AX.25, NET/ROM and ROSE, even though today’s activity varies greatly by region.
Speeds: from 1,200 baud to modern packet links
| Mode or environment | Typical rate | What it is used for |
|---|---|---|
| HF packet | Traditionally about 300 baud | Long-distance links under difficult propagation conditions |
| VHF packet | Usually 1,200 baud AFSK | Local nodes, BBS access, APRS and emergency messaging |
| UHF packet | Often 9,600 baud FSK/GMSK | Faster local or backbone links where compatible radios are available |
| Experimental or modern radio data | 19.2 kbit/s and above; some systems reach hundreds of kbit/s | Specialized modems, wider channels, IP links and amateur microwave networks |
Baud and useful application throughput are not always identical, and a nominally eight-times-faster modem may deliver much less than eight times the useful data. Channel contention, acknowledgements, turnaround time, retransmissions and protocol overhead all matter. Dire Wolf’s documentation includes a detailed discussion of why 9,600-baud packet may produce only about twice the practical throughput of 1,200 baud in some conditions.
“Modern high-speed packet” is not one universal successor to AX.25. It includes improved narrowband software modems, VARA FM for radio email, higher-rate experimental links, amateur microwave IP networks and projects such as New Packet Radio on 70 cm, which was designed for tens to hundreds of kilobits per second. Frequencies, permitted bandwidth, power and licensing differ by country, so a published technical maximum is not automatically a legal local configuration.
Winlink: email carried by radio
Winlink Global Radio Email is a worldwide message system operated by licensed volunteers. A user runs a Winlink client, connects by radio to a Radio Mail Server gateway and exchanges messages. The gateway normally transfers those messages through Winlink’s internet-connected server system. On VHF and UHF, gateways may support AX.25 packet or faster modes such as VARA FM; on HF, other modes are used to cross much greater distances.
Winlink is not “ordinary email, but free over a handheld.” It requires a compatible radio, interface or modem, client software, an accessible gateway and correct operating privileges. Radio links are slow, shared and propagation-dependent. Attachments must be kept small, connection time matters, and local amateur-radio content rules still apply.
Its value is resilience. Emergency coordinators, disaster-response volunteers, maritime operators, remote travelers and amateur-radio groups use Winlink to move forms, short email, position reports and operational information where normal connectivity is unavailable or disrupted. Most gateway traffic uses the internet after the radio hop, but Winlink’s Hybrid Network can provide radio forwarding between participating HF gateways when internet paths fail. The live gateway map is the appropriate place to check current availability; a remembered frequency or old list is not enough.
TNCs, soundcard modems and today’s equipment
The traditional Terminal Node Controller is a hardware box between the computer and radio. It contains a modem, implements AX.25 functions, controls push-to-talk and exposes a terminal or KISS interface to software. A TNC made packet practical when personal computers could not reliably process audio in real time.
Modern computers can do much of that work in software. Dire Wolf is an actively maintained software soundcard AX.25 modem and TNC. It can decode and encode packet audio and can also act as a tracker, digipeater or APRS internet gateway. A modest station may consist of a radio, a USB sound interface, isolation and push-to-talk circuitry, and a Raspberry Pi or ordinary computer running Dire Wolf and packet applications.
Hardware TNCs remain useful because they are self-contained, predictable and often easy to integrate with field radios. Software TNCs are flexible, inexpensive and easier to update. Neither choice eliminates the need for clean audio levels, reliable PTT control, suitable antennas and disciplined channel use.
How packet radio influenced Meshtastic
Meshtastic is not AX.25 packet radio, but several of its concepts have clear predecessors:
- Packets rather than continuous streams: both move small addressed units of data across a shared radio channel.
- Store-and-forward behavior: packet BBS stations retained mail for later collection; Meshtastic nodes and clients retain recent messages, while some roles and related services extend delayed delivery.
- Digital relaying: packet digipeaters retransmit AX.25 frames; Meshtastic nodes rebroadcast eligible LoRa packets.
- Hop control: AX.25 paths and routed packet networks constrain relays; Meshtastic uses a hop limit to prevent packets circulating indefinitely.
- Infrastructure built by users: both depend heavily on volunteers placing radios, antennas and power systems where they improve coverage.
The lineage is conceptual, not protocol compatibility. Meshtastic was designed around inexpensive LoRa transceivers, modern microcontrollers, phone apps and licence-exempt allocations. Packet radio grew around amateur callsigns, AX.25, TNCs and amateur-band radios.
Packet radio vs. Meshtastic
| Question | Classic packet radio | Meshtastic |
|---|---|---|
| Radio service | Amateur radio; transmitting normally requires a licence | Usually licence-exempt ISM/SRD operation under regional device rules |
| Common bands | HF, VHF and UHF amateur allocations | Regional LoRa bands such as 433, 868 or 902–928 MHz |
| Link/protocol | Usually AX.25, with applications and routing layers above it | Meshtastic packets encoded with Protocol Buffers over LoRa |
| Typical classic speed | 300, 1,200 or 9,600 baud, with faster specialized modes | Low data rate determined by LoRa preset and regional configuration |
| Network behavior | Direct links, digipeater paths, nodes, routed networks and BBS forwarding | Decentralized managed flooding with hop limits |
| Primary identity | Licensed callsign | User/node identity; regional regulations still apply |
| Privacy | Amateur traffic is generally open and encryption is restricted or prohibited | Channels can use AES encryption under the licence-exempt operating model |
| Direct interoperability | None: different frequencies, modulation, framing, addressing and network protocols | |
A dual-purpose gateway can be deliberately built to read one system and create a new message in another, but that is an application-level bridge, not radio interoperability. It must also respect the rules on both sides—especially the prohibition on carrying encrypted or inappropriate third-party traffic over amateur bands. A stock packet node cannot hear Meshtastic LoRa packets, and a Meshtastic router cannot relay AX.25.
Packet radio in Serbia and the Balkans today
The Balkans were part of packet radio’s early expansion. Radio Club Zenica records that it installed Bosnia and Herzegovina’s first packet digipeater and began packet contacts in the 1980s. A Serbian-language FBB packet-BBS guide also preserves routing examples using YU callsigns and BBS addressing, evidence of a technically sophisticated regional network culture.
Current activity is more fragmented. The Croatian Amateur Radio Association forum still maintains Packet radio, Digipeaters and PR software sections. A March 2026 Croatian discussion reports that packet activity could still be heard on 144.800 MHz. APRS digipeaters and i-gates across Serbia, Croatia and neighboring countries also demonstrate continuing AX.25-family infrastructure, although APRS is not the same thing as an interactive BBS.
What cannot be responsibly claimed is a continuously available, region-wide classic BBS or NET/ROM network. Public lists are incomplete, old node pages often survive long after transmitters disappear, and a callsign on an internet map does not prove that a local RF BBS accepts connections. For Serbia in particular, readily verifiable current evidence is stronger for APRS and individual digital activity than for a published national BBS network. Operators should ask a local club, listen on the locally coordinated packet channel and consult live APRS and Winlink maps before planning around a node.
That uneven survival does not make packet radio obsolete. It makes it a living specialist network: active where clubs and individuals maintain it, useful for emergency messaging and experimentation, and easy to revive with modern software TNCs.
What to read next
- Amateur Radio Voice and Digital Repeaters
- APRS Digipeaters and Internet Gateways
- How Amateur Radio Complements Meshtastic
Packet radio shows that resilient digital communication is not defined by one fashionable device or protocol. It is a pattern: divide information into manageable packets, identify where it should go, use relays intelligently, tolerate delayed paths and let communities build infrastructure appropriate to their terrain. Meshtastic expresses that pattern with LoRa and current consumer hardware. Packet radio expresses it with amateur spectrum, callsigns and four decades of operational experience.