[ih] Packet Radio Notes

[Greg Skinner]

(Responses inline)

On Apr 22, 2025, at 5:26 PM, John Gilmore via Internet-history <internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:
> 
> Alexander McKenzie via Internet-history wrote:
>> I must apologize for a serious misstatement.  I now realize it was not
>> IEN's which were strictly controlled, it was Packet Radio Notes.
> 
> Surely the need for strict control of the 1970s Packet Radio Notes has
> passed by now.  Is there a full archive of them publicly accessible
> somewhere?
> 
> Is there a list somewhere of all the issued Packet Radio Notes?
> Which could perhaps be used to anchor searches for all of them?

John,

I don’t know of a full archive, but there is a list of Packet Radio Temporary Notes that’s available from the DTIC site.

https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/tr/pdf/ADA141528.pdf

Some of those PRTNs are IENs as well.

> ARDC.net and the Internet Archive are collecting a Digital Library of
> Amateur Radio and Communications, which would probably be happy to host
> this collection.  See:
> 
>  https://blog.archive.org/tag/dlarc/
> 
> A web search for "Packet Radio Note" turned up exactly one reference,
> which is hidden inside ACM's "digital crypt" where papers check in and
> never check out:
> 
>  https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/1499949.1499988
> 
>  Technological considerations for packet radio networks
>  Authors: Stanley C. Fralick, James C. Garrett
>  AFIPS '75: Proceedings of the May 19-22, 1975, national computer conference and exposition
>  Pages 233 - 243
>  https://doi.org/10.1145/1499949.1499988
>  Published: 19 May 1975 
> 
>  Abstract: The application of packet-switching techniques to radio
>  channels has provided a solution to many computer-communications
>  problems previously unsolved. For example, a packet radio network can
>  readily be designed to provide area coverage at data rates fast enough
>  to support interactive operations for thousands of users having a
>  variety of terminals such as hand-held devices, TTY-like devices,
>  display devices, computers, and unattended sensors. Since the
>  interconnections are by radio, the users can be fixed or mobile, and
>  the network can be easily moved. Furthermore, it can be readily
>  established in remote or primitive areas where a wired network would
>  be impossible, and total connectivity of users will be provided.
> 
> It lists as a reference:
> 
>  Nielson, D. L., Microwave Propagation and Noise Measurements for
>  Mobile Digital Radio Application, SRI PACKET RADIO NOTE No. 4
>  (emphasis mine), January 1975, Stanford Research Institute, Menlo
>  Park, California.
> 
> That Nielson paper is available here:
> 
>  https://sci-hub.se/10.1109/t-vt.1978.23733
> 
> (the sci-hub version doesn't say it's Secret Packet Radio Note No. 4.)
> 
> 	John

That paper is from a collection I’m not familiar with.  There is a report by Don Nielson I found on the CHM site that’s part of another series of SRI quarterly management packet radio reports.

https://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/text/2009/102686324.05.01.acc.pdf

--gregbo