unconnected mode operation

Hello All, Dave AD5OO here.
Old to linux, new to ham, really new to linux-hams.

My initial searches have not turned up any software that will let you use an ax25 port to do interactive unconnected mode operation like you are able to do when talking directly to a hardware tnc. So I wrote a short script that uses the already available tools to implement a crude unconnected mode tnc which is permanently in converse mode. Since there is no flow control, incoming packets can disrupt something you may be typing. As usual, ctrl-r will re-type the input and allow you to continue from there. Ctrl-d will close the input and kill the listen command. Ctrl-c will exit immediately and leave listen running.

Enjoy!

#!/bin/bash

# your ax25 port and unproto go here
PORT=ax0
UNPROTO="cq via relay-1 relay-2"

listen -r -p $PORT &

while [ 0 ]; do
read INPUT
if [ $? == 1 ]; then break; fi
beacon -d "$UNPROTO" -s $PORT "$INPUT"
done

kill %1 # to stop the listen