Joseph Fenn wrote in
va.net:

Ok Dave on your fillin. Yes we still have a dedicated TheNet packet
vhf
system in the Isles. It is a node system however and uses TheNet
software which I know very little about. Its on 145.07 and has reptrs
on top of Mt Haleakala on MAUI island, also on MT Maunaloa on the big
island of Hawaii. I have figured out a few of the cmds and can connect
to MAUI (an alias for Maui), can also after connecting do a
c mloa (which then connects to the alias MLOA so that covers most
of the State except Kauai. I can use the TALK cmd and ragchew with
someone os actually send tfc via the talk cmd if a host is available.
Just talked to Civil Defense guy I have known for years, and he says
that system was setup for emgcy comms originally on 145.07 bit it mp
is no longer used for anything. I could still sent emgcy traffic
to the other islands tho in case of a real emergency. Just use
the C(onnect cmd then switch to talk or c to another alias and talk.
I run my beacon on 145.07 just to see if can scare up some interest.
So far nothing happening.

You know, back around 1990 when I was sort of shifting gears from packet
BBS sysop to landline sysop, we had a packet node network in the east
(consisting mostly of NETROM and TheNET) that ran all the way up to
Ontario from Nova Scotia and all the way down to DC. In fact, using the
IPARN Ottawa-Calgary backbone, I was almost able (couldn't sustain the
connection) to reach Halifax from Spearfish, SD back in 1989. But the
Spearfish-to-Calgary link was rather primitive, if I recall--mostly KA-
Nodes.

Nowadays, here in the Fraser Valley, I'm confronted with several
disconnected pieces of packet technology that don't seem to have much
connectivity to anywhere except local puddles of activity. If I knew a
place where I could run up a 2m Jnos system, I'd probably poke it in the
middle of one of the local TheNet clusters and backbone it to a bunch of
nodes via the internet. But it would have to be somewhere away from here
because I value my 2m FM QSO's and a packet node without some cavities to
clean up the desensing would be just too much.

--
Dave Oldridge+
ICQ 1800667