At around 9PM on May 31, 1978 were the first KNOWN transmissions of Packet over Amateur Radio. The location was Bill Wong’s Restaurant in Montreal, Canada.
The Montreal Packet Net Group C/O:
Bob Rouleau VE2PY; Norm Pearl VE2BQS; Fred Basserman VE2BQF; Bram Frank VE2BFH; Jacques Orsali VE2EP; Ted Baleshta VE3CAF; Ian Hodgson VE2BEN; among others not mentioned.
They operated on a single 220Mhz channel using start-stop ASCII with the Ethernet CSMA/CD protocol. The protocol was modified for amateur applications by Robert T. Rouleau, VE2PY, and implemented by Fred Basserman, VE2BQF. Montreal Packet Net (MP-Net) Operated at 2400 bit/s using home-built modems.
A detailed description of the Montreal Protocol and hardware used in the experiments is given in the TAB book #1345 “PACKET RADIO” by Bob Rouleau and Ian Hodgson published in 1981. An interesting note is that the Montreal Modem design used the Exar XR-2206/2211 chip set. I am told that a sample of the Montreal Modem was sent to the Vancouver group (VADCG) in the fall of 1978 and it is probably no coincidence that the same chip set appeared in the TAPR TNC modem of which Doug Lockhart of VADCG had a hand in designing.
After an initial spurt of activity in amateur packet, Bob Rouleau and several others in the group turned to commercial applications for packet radio. The resulting company, DATARADIO Inc, today is building and marketing commercial packet radio systems around the world. A typical application is the Canadian Weather Radio packet service introduced some years ago using DATARADIO equipment specially designed for the application.
Bob was inducted into the CQ Amateur Radio Hall of Fame in 2003
To Commemorate this 28th anniversary listen for W4P from May 26, 2006 – June 4, 2006
Operating will be on both CW and SSB on the “normal” frequencies, i.e.
SSB 3.790 – 7.190 – 14.190
CW 3.520 – 7.020 – 14.025
+/- QRM
Certificate available for a Large SASE
QSL to NA4DR