Vintage rack of packet radio TNCs and BBS gear from a 1990s amateur node site

The legacy

For more than two decades, this domain belonged to the Southern Ontario Packet Radio Association — SOPRA — and the volunteer operators who kept VE3CON, VE3INF, VE3PRC and the rest of the regional packet network linked. We preserve that history because the principles still matter: distributed nodes, store-and-forward routing, redundant paths, and operators who understood every link in the chain.

SOPRA history & node archive
Engineer adjusting a digital radio link cabinet at a remote hilltop relay site

The infrastructure

The same questions that drove packet radio in 1990 — how do you carry information across a region without depending on a single tower or single carrier? — drive modern radio infrastructure today. We write about transmitter sites, IP backhaul, mesh links, software-defined radio, and the practical reality of running distributed broadcast systems in 2026.

Read the infrastructure section
Volunteer operator at a small community radio studio, with mixer and microphone

The community side

Community broadcasters inherit more from amateur radio than they usually realise. Volunteer operators, modest equipment budgets, careful frequency coordination, and a deep sense that the airwaves belong to the people who use them. We cover community FM stations, online-only operations, campus radio, and hybrid models that mix terrestrial and IP delivery.

Community broadcasting essays

Selected reading

Long-form pieces published on PacketRadio.ca, organised so the legacy material and the modern material reference each other directly. New readers usually start with the bridge essays before diving into the technical archives or the online-radio section.

Close-up of a Kantronics KAM packet radio TNC from a 1990s station

What packet radio was — and why it mattered

An honest explanation of AX.25, store-and-forward BBS networks, and what made amateur packet feel revolutionary before the consumer internet swallowed everything.

Read the explainer
Map illustration of overlapping radio coverage cells across a region

Why distributed radio networks still matter

Why the centralised, single-cloud-region model of audio delivery is fragile, and what packet radio operators understood about resilience that most modern broadcasters are still relearning.

Why distribution matters
Notebook with handwritten plans for a community radio station next to a USB audio interface

How a small community can launch online radio

The non-glossy version: licensing in Canada, the realistic monthly cost, the streaming stack that actually works for a town of three thousand, and what to skip.

Practical launch guide
Portable HF transceiver and battery box set up on a folding table for emergency communications

Backup communications & broadcast resilience

Where amateur radio infrastructure, public broadcasters, and emergency communications still overlap — and the lessons local stations should be planning around in 2026.

On resilience