Does amateur packet radio still exist?

[ericmark]

I have an Amiga A1200 with hard drive that I used with a Baycom modem with Amicom software, is it worth keeping or has packet radio AX25 stopped being used?

If no longer used I may as well scrap all the monitors (BBC) modem and Amigas, and just keep the radio's.

 

[QfanatiQ]

Store it

 

[ericmark]

That is what I have done for years, but all on hold as old house in lock down area.

 

[Keithmac]

Your A1200 is worth quite a bit now, I have one as well (somewhere..), plus an A500.

 

[mattylad]

Think about it.
Hams still use morse and that was mothballed a millennia ago, they use all sorts of old modes of communication to try and keep them alive.

Of course it's still in use you silly billy!!

 

[ericmark]

I have listened to 144.794-144.990MHz Machine Generated Modes (MGM) & Digital Comms, not a peep, in fact 2 meter band seems totally dead. If I thought with a bigger aerial I could get some signal then may be worth while fitting one, but a handy left switched on for a year on call channel I have only heard one guy use it, clearly more elevated to myself, and using a large aerial. He says I may with an large aerial get to Newtown repeater, but only radio I can get is the railway PMR repeater. Even commercial broadcast Radio 1, 2, 3, 4 etc is hard to get.

It's there, I can get it, but such poor quality moved to internet, use Nest Mini now, so if Packet still going maybe I can sell it/give it to some one who can use it. As to Morse, I think the law was reasonable for it's continued use, I know now my GW7 licence allows me to use HF, but for so many years you had to learn Morse to use the HF bands.

Morse is still used to send messages with low power, earth - moon - earth for example.

 

[mattylad]

People do morse now because they want to, not because they have to to pass the test.

Yes try selling your packet gear although don't expect a lot for it.
check ebay for prices that others are going for.
A simple pcb modem seems to be good enough now, everything else being done by the PC or a raspberry pi etc.