Packet Radio! In 1991, long before commercial email was available, much less Internet service providers, I used packet to send mail back and forth from overseas to my father in the States. We did this for two years and saved a ton in phone bills. It was so rewarding; we both had to construct the stations ourselves, including antennas, and understand the nature of what we were doing. The idea of sending a digital packet of data was novel and enriching, and all of it led to my becoming a technologist today. That's the spirit of Amateur Radio - that you can play until it breaks and learn all along the way. That's what you'll find in the IRLP as well.
I bought the DLink DI-713 and am very satisfied. It was easy to setup with a cable modem and with the built-in router, I had no problem using DHCP. Since it has actual ports, I plugged in my iMac to use for secure stuff and leave the PC laptop with it's wireless modem for reading/. I found that turning on the encryption dropped my transfer rate 20-40 K/sec but it is still way above what I have known with a phone modem.
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1. I skip commercials. They need to find another way to get to me.
2. I pay my bills with PayMyBills.com so if they send me junk mail, it gets thrown out.
And my usage data goes (hopefuly) to protect good shows from being cancelled and bad shows from stinkin' up the joint!
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