My primary home station is based on a Yaesu FT-847. For the most part, it rocks! Here's how easy it was to make a good packet cable for it.
I haven't collected *that* many links, but I have a few that might interest others. The American Radio Relay League is the largest organization of radio amateurs in the United States. There are a great many useful resources available from the ARRL to members and non-members, it is certainly worth a look.
Despite being licensed a long time (over 20 years) and holding an Extra class license, I'm one of those folks delighted to see the code requirement reformed in the amateur licensing process. The single 5WPM requirement in the United States licensing process is a major step forward. Whether you agree with me or not, you may want to have a look at the No-Code International homepage and read some of the interesting papers available there. Another interesting link is the homepage of the International Morse Preservation Society (FISTS).
Packet radio is, by an honest account, at a cross-roads. After all these years, most packet activity is still at 1200 baud on 2m, though 9600 baud and UHF are not uncommon. The Internet has made virtually everyone aware of what effective wide-area-networking (WAN) can be, so there is increasing frustration with packet radio. Some folks think that packet is best used as a local or metropolitan network (LAN/MAN) to link to the Internet, while others think that packet should be developed into a new kind of WAN. I suggest having a look at the Tucson Area Packet Radio homepage as well as the controversial Packet Experimentors Society of Texoma homepage (I personally think that the approach of P.E.S.T.'s Charles Brabham is rude, but, hey, have a look and see what you think). I frankly believe Charles is hallucinating when he asserts that FlexNet is renewing interest in what might be called "traditional packet radio"; the only segment of packet radio seeing growth that I can tell is APRS.
The Federal Communications Commission has a very interesting homepage, with a great deal of information on how radio is regulated in the United States, as well as a number of online databases (amateur, commercial and mass media).
Perhaps you've noticed the Morse code banner running on my homepage. That's a little Java that I wrote all by myself. If you're interested in using the applet yourself, want the source code, or have an idea for an enhancement, feel free to email me.
If, like me, you're interested in building things, you'll almost certainly want to keep the URL for the FAR Circuits online catalog. FAR circuits makes PCBs for most of the projects published in the major amateur radio magazines and they're not very expensive.
Dana, K6JQ. Last updated: 15 June 2001.