Quickstart

So you're a licensed amateur radio operator, you're interested in IP networking, and you want to combine the two. AMPRNet is for you. This Quickstart guide can help get you set up quickly.

A system diagram showing 44Net is available

To get online with AMPRNet, you will probably want to start with a tunnel connection to the rest of the network. You will need the following:

1. A router. This can be a specialized routing device, or a general purpose computer. It probably won't need a lot of compute power, so you can recycle an old PC or something similar.
2. An Internet connection that gives you a stable IP address for the rest of the network to talk to you: AMPRNet tunnels pass AMPRNet data between parts of the AMPR network by encapsulating them in non-44net Internet traffic. Static IP addresses are best for this, but IP addresses dynamically assigned to you by your ISP may work if they change infrequently.

Once you have a machine to act as a router and a suitable network connection, do the following:

1. Register on the portal.

Click on REGISTER and complete the requested information

1. Request a network allocation from your regional coordinator.
   1. From the portal's networks page, navigate to your country and region's network subpage.
   2. From the regional network page, request an allocation. Note, select only ONE of the connection options (Radio, Tunnel, or Direct). To start, you probably want to select 'Tunnel'. For more information on requesting an allocation, see the wiki page on Requesting a block.
2. Once your allocation has been granted, register your gateway through the portal.
3. Once your gateway has been registered, email your local coordinator and ask them to register DNS mappings for the hosts on your network. If you are unable to email your local coordinator, or they do not have access to the DNS update system, then please email hostmaster@ardc.net and someone will get back to you and assist you. Note that the main tunnel router at UCSD will NOT pass traffic to an IP address unless that address is associated with a hostname in the ampr.org DNS domain.
4. Configure your router to act as a Gateway to the rest of the network.

That's it! You now have a tunnel to the rest of the network. From here, you can connect devices via RF links, subnet your network if you like, and start exploring TCP/IP over amateur radio.

Next Steps

Once you are connected, you should subscribe to the 44Net mailing list.