Welcome to the latest edition of the National Packet Update, where we strive to collate updates on our endeavors to increase packet radio usage and expand its coverage in the United Kingdom, Ireland, and beyond.

I think its fair to say that packet has well and truly taken off and is seeing some exponential growth, with almost 50 NoV'd packet nodes online. Whilst this is great news and an incredible effort from all those involved, it does making these updates a little more challenging to put together. Going forward I'd request that people submit their updates via this https://forms.gle/b7et3B2724D1i3JH8. These could be updates on new nodes, new links, software updates, and general progress or success stories that you want included in the update.

In Scotland Andy GM7GDE has put up MB7UAH near East Kilbride

In the North East of England, Robin M0JQQ is now operating GB7CNR near Cramlington, and Gregory M0ODZ has applied for GB7ODZ in the nearby Houghton Le Spring. Hopefully once the two are operational they'll be able to link up and start exchanging packets. Scott M0RWV has also put up MB7UWV near Scarborough.

In the Midlands, Dave G1ZEK has put up GB7NWL near Castle Donnington and Jon G7RUP GB7LCN in Lincoln. Andy M1NER has put up MB7NER near Peterborough.

In London, Syzmon M0GZP has been granted GB7WEM for his Node in Sudbury, and has reliable RF connectivity into GB7CIP in Caterham - one of, if not the oldest packet node still operating.

In the west of England, M0ZEN has put up MB7NCD near Coleford in Gloucestershire

The software world has also been incredibly busy. Paula has released Xrouter v502x, available on the XRouter groups.io. It's currently for upgrading existing systems but she's currently working on a new installer and documentation for fresh installs.

Hibby MM0RFN has also been putting in some hard work to build packages and host packet related software so it's as simple as `apt-get install`. For a list of instructions and available packages see this page

Jonathan G4KLX has also been working to add new packet modes to run on MMDVM hardware, with the goal of squeezing out more speed from the available 12.5 and 25khz channels.

• Join the OARC Discord server (https://www.oarc.uk/join) and visit the #national-packet-project channel.
• Join the UK Packet Radio mailing list: https://groups.io/g/ukpacketradio/
• Visit https://packet.oarc.uk for further information, tutorials, and more. (Please note that this page is a work in progress, just like this project!)
• Build a node and get it on the air, or try connecting to any of the existing nodes.
• Stay tuned for future updates on the progress.