I know you all are focussing on the nuts and bolts first. A huge task! But please consider this a request for the return of the carousel upload page. It was very fun to toss a few such messages in a bottle and wonder who might read them. Some kind of user scheduled upload amount seems intrinsic to the utility of the service. When might such a feature be reactivated?
I’d also like to please encourage using Unicode in this vein, as a standard for what is presumed a multilingual service. I recall uploading some Chinese texts but having trouble with it rejecting the Unicode. Thanks.
This looks like an interesting idea.
One of the delights of amateur radio is two way communications through an unusual mode; earth-moon-earth, LEO amateur communication satellite, the space station package, making a CQ on HF, or just keying up the loacl 2m repeater.
With some user control over the content who knows what useful and lightweight service might end up being created by creative people. Sputnik was turned into a useful navigation tool, but not by the USSR, AO7 was used by Polish Solidarity to communicate behind the backs of the Soviets, what can we do with a lightweight way to broadcast a tiny bit of our own data over the Othernet feed.
Yes, the user uploads are important. They will eventually be brought back in some form.
Currently hams can use APRS to relay a message (tagged with OTHER) across both of the beams. A ham with a VHF/144 MHz transmitter (basically a Raspberry Pi and Baofeng radio or a Pi and a specialized hat) in an offline area can send a message which will be broadcast across two continents.
That change doesn’t seem to have been implemented. I sent two aprs messages… One with “other” and a second with “outnet”. Only the OUTNET got picked up transmitted via the satellites.
This probably good… since “OTHER” is way too common of a code word to select what is re-broadcast.
