The meeting featured Al WØRC giving a talk and demonstration of packet radio. Al said that packet communications was around long before Al Gore invented the Internet. Two-way packet can be 100% reliable because a dropped packet will be automatically retransmitted as many times as necessary to get an accurate message through.

The photo shows Al holding a TNC (Terminal Node Controller). These devices go between a computer and a standard FM transceiver. The most commonly used packet frequencies are 145.67 MHz and 145.01 MHz. Users can send text messages to others. The log-in call sign of the Brainerd node is MNBRD. More information is available on http://www.14567.org There is a bulletin board called BRDBBS. For the DX Cluster on 147.525, use BRDDX to look at who is contacting whom on HF.