TAPR is a community that provides leadership and resources to radio amateurs for the purpose of advancing the radio art.
Interested in:
• general packet radio information?
• high-speed packet operations?
• other types of digital communications?
• experimenting or building kits?
• keeping up-to-date on national digital and packet issues?
Then you might be interested in TAPR!
The goals of TAPR are to 1) support R&D efforts in the area of amateur digital communications, 2) disseminate information on packet and digital communications, 3) provide affordable and useful kits for experimenters and hobbyists, 4) pursue and help advance the amateur art of communications, and 5) support publications, meetings, and standards in the area of amateur digital communications.
History
If you have used a packet radio TNC, then you are already a part of TAPR history. The TNC (Terminal Node Controller) project grew from a discussion in October of 1981 at a meeting of the Tucson Chapter of the IEEE Computer Society. A week later, six of the attendees gathered and discussed the feasibility of developing a Terminal Node Controller that would be complete and available to amateurs at a modest cost. This was the genesis of TAPR. On June 26th 1982, Lyle Johnson, WA7GXD, and Den Connors, KD2S, initiated a packet contact with the first TAPR unit. The project progressed from these first prototype units to the TNC-1 and then finally to the TNC-2 which is now the basis for most amateur packet operations worldwide. TAPR was founded in 1982 as a international organization with interests in the areas of packet and digital communications. Today, TAPR continues as a membership supported non-profit amateur research and development organization. TAPR currently has more than 2000 members, worldwide and continues to develop kits for the amateur community and is working actively on publications and communications standards. TAPR is the place for digital communication information and research. (Read more)
