Packet Radio Infrastructure for Ham and CB Bands

For some time now, I’ve been operating two continuously available Packet Radio nodes with mailbox systems — one in the amateur radio band and the other on the CB band.

Ham Radio

• Node: DB0APK-7 (438.150 MHz, 9k6 AFSK)
• Mailbox (BBS): DB0APK-7

Citizen Band (CB)

• Node: DNO349 (Channel 24, 1k2 AFSK)
• Mailbox (BBS): DBX349

Both systems support mail forwarding and AXIP-based links to other stations. For example, DB0APK is currently connected to Stations in France, the UK, and Spain.

Software Stack

The software setup is identical for both systems:

• Node software: LinBPQ
• Mailbox software: OpenBCM

When selecting the stack, I focused on:

• Fully open-source code
• Readable and maintainable codebase
• Reproducible builds from source
• Support for classic TNCs and software modems like Direwolf

You can find my forks and related amateur radio tools here: 👉 https://github.com/andreaspeters

Hardware

I’m using reliable TNCs from the 1990s:

• 1k2: SYMEK TNC2s
• 9k6: SYMEK TNC2H

The system runs on a Fujitsu Esprimo Q920 mini PC — quiet, low power consumption, and enough performance for additional future services. It’s also running a traditional dial-in BBS system.

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