TAPR is an international

amateur radio Amateur radio, also known as ham radio, is the use of the radio frequency spectrum for purposes of non-commercial exchange of messages, wireless experimentation, self-training, private recreation, radiosport, contesting, and emergency communic ...

organization. It was founded in Tucson, Arizona, in 1981 by a group of amateurs interested in developing a

terminal node controller A terminal node controller (TNC) is a device used by amateur radio operators to participate in AX.25 packet radio networks. It is similar in function to the Packet Assembler/Disassemblers used on X.25 networks, with the addition of a modem to ...

(TNC) for amateur use. Thus, the group was named Tucson Amateur Packet Radio, Inc. After developing one of the first widely available TNCs, TAPR rapidly became a national and then international group. It now identifies itself simply by the acronym TAPR rather than the spelled-out name. TAPR no longer has any direct connection with

Tucson , "(at the) base of the black ill , nicknames = "The Old Pueblo", "Optics Valley", "America's biggest small town" , image_map = , mapsize = 260px , map_caption = Interactive map ...

Arizona Arizona ( ; nv, Hoozdo Hahoodzo ; ood, Alĭ ṣonak ) is a state in the Southwestern United States. It is the 6th largest and the 14th most populous of the 50 states. Its capital and largest city is Phoenix. Arizona is part of the Fou ...

. Today, TAPR no longer focuses on packet radio, but continues as a research and development oriented group offering kits, assembled products, and publications related to the intersection of amateur radio and digital technology. TAPR describes itself as "A community that provides leadership and resources to radio amateurs for the purpose of advancing the radio art." Current products and development activity relate to

software-defined radio Software-defined radio (SDR) is a radio communication system where components that have been traditionally implemented in analog hardware (e.g. mixers, filters, amplifiers, modulators/demodulators, detectors, etc.) are instead implemented by me ...

GPS The Global Positioning System (GPS), originally Navstar GPS, is a Radionavigation-satellite service, satellite-based radionavigation system owned by the United States government and operated by the United States Space Force. It is one of t ...

, APRS and time and frequency measurement. TAPR is a supporter of the

HPSDR The OpenHPSDR (High Performance Software Defined Radio) project dates from 2005 when Phil Covington, Phil Harman, and Bill Tracey combined their separate projects to form the HPSDR group. It is built around a modular concept which encourages ex ...

(High Performance Software-Defined Radio) project which has developed a modular and extensible hardware platform for amateur and experimenter oriented

. Together with the

ARRL The American Radio Relay League (ARRL) is the largest membership association of amateur radio enthusiasts in the United States. ARRL is a non-profit organization, and was co-founded on April 6, 1914, by Hiram Percy Maxim and Clarence D. Tuska of ...

, TAPR sponsors an annual Digital Communications Conference. They are the creators of the

TAPR Open Hardware License The TAPR Open Hardware License (TAPR OPL) is a license used in open-source hardware projects. It was created by Tucson Amateur Packet Radio (TAPR), an international amateur radio organization. Version 1.0 was published on May 25, 2007. Like the ...

References

External links

TAPR

Open High Performance SDR Group
{{amateur-radio-stub Amateur radio organizations