Sedan Network

Learning as I always strive to do, I was told about the SEDAN network -  The SouthEastern Digital Association Network.   This is a packet over radio network that allows amateur radio  operators with X.25 TNCs connected to their radios to connect to it for exchanging information.   Basically is supports texting and leaving of email through the BBS system.  The information I have claims over 200 nodes in 11 states.

Information on the network in Florida is available at:  http://www.fla-sedan.com.    Though it has large coverage throughout Florida, there are nodes located throughout the South East United States.

So in the interest of learning more, I decided to try and connect.  I have a TNC that is built into my TH-D72 aprs HT.  I know how to connect to it using putty from my PC.

Wanting to make sure I could get a good connection, I connected the HT to the VHF antenna in the yard so that problems I would expected to have would be computer related as opposed to radio related.

So if figured I would give it a try.  I tuned you to 145.770 FM with no tone, heard no other signals so I sent my first command:
     c KA4EOC-7
And low and behold I got a response from the local sedan node.

Then I connected to the BBS system so I could leave a message:
      bbs
and I connected to the messaging system and the following commands were available:
   l for list
   r to read
   s to send
   k to kill (delete message
   b (bye) to get out of bbs system

I sent a message to myself,  read the message and deleted the message.   I then exited the bbs system and typed by to get out of the entire system.

I expected a lot of hemming and hawing, but it was very straight forward.  It just worked.
I did not try connecting through the packet network to other nodes or doing anything interesting, but maybe later.   I was just impressed that it worked so easily.

If you have a local SEDAN node, give it a shot.