Hello! It's been a while, I hope you're keeping well!

There have been a lot of exciting changes in our network over the last months, some facilitated by the Ofcom updates to the license and some by our growing understanding through experimentation. It's an exciting time to be a packeteer!

The license has become more relaxed, allowing for greater experimentation. The changes are too great to summarise, but an important headline is the NoV Process has largely been replaced with Frequency Allocation Certificates granting 5-25W and GB7/MB7 calls available to intermediate & full license holders on many frequencies.

FACs are easy and quick to get and I strongly recommend considering applying for one if you haven't already.

The Repo at https://online-amateur-radio-club-m0ouk.github.io/oarc-packages/ has the latest G8BPQ's BPQNODE (6.0.24.33) and other helpful packet software and you might find useful - see the table at the bottom of the page.

XROUTER by Paula G8PZQ is currently at Xr503b and available from https://groups.io/g/xrouter.

Thanks to Tom M0LTE for his continued work on the infrastructure at https://ukpacketradio.network, I particularly like to have https://nodes.ukpacketradio.network/packet-network-map.html?rfonly=1 on in the background to see propagation change through the day!

Thanks to all who are working on software - your patience and persistence is an incredibly important component of facilitating our fun.

GMPN continues to grow apace!

In the Faaar North West, we're all very excited to see GB7BPQ appear on 40m linking to GB7RDG and GB7OXF.

In the North East, GB7NRT and GB7CQV hold FACs for 2m and 70cm, and GB7HIB has an FAC for 70cm and 40m, bringing message and bulletin forwarding over RF to the subnetwork via GB7AUG and GB7IOW so far. New peers are welcome, and plans are afoot to change frequency and band through the day for different speed links.

In the central belt, GM5AUG advises that GB7AUG has a 4m port planned on 70.4875MHz. The Glasburgh Citylink from MB7NKL to GB7NDH has a high speed 70cm port under development, with an aim of up to 9k6bd!

Welcome to both MM7NSY and MM7WXT who've recently become regular fixtures on the map and congratulations to GM0BKS on establishing GB7BKS.

Jules, G0NZO advises MB7NSC added a link node on 439.950 9K6 IL2P+crc. This Links to GB7NBH over Bath/Bristol way and GB7GDT at Gillingham.

A 4mtr port (70.3125 1200bd AX25 ) is under trial to GB7RDG in Reading and GB7BDH South of Swindon. The mode may change as experiments develop.

MB7NSC is beaconing on 70.325, but shall be changed on the next site visit.

Entries are open until April 30 for next month's edition. Please submit notes, comments announcements and feedback to hibby at debian.org or MM0RFN@GB7HIB.#75.GBR.EURO.

May your deviation always be fine,

Hibby

This is a non-exhaustive list of some of the things we're hoping to achieve in the near future.

• Experiment and have fun!

• Join the OARC Discord server ( https://www.oarc.uk/join ) and checkout the #national-packet-project channel
• Join the UK Packet Radio mailing list https://groups.io/g/ukpacketradio/
• See https://packet.oarc.uk for further information, tutorials etc. [As with this project, this page is a work in progress!]
• Build a node and get it on the air, or see if you can hit any of the existing nodes
• Look out for future updates to see how things are progressing

May your deviation always be true,

Hibby