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I'm new to ham radio; just got my callsign last year. I haven't had much opportunity to dig into the packet digital text stuff.

Looks like certain radios support it directly, as with the old "pagers" and modern worksite walkie-talkies. Other services use repeaters linked to the internet so that radio users can squirt text messages wirelessly to an e-mail server. I'm not sure if that's an optimum solution, given the topic of this thread. As far as equipment, you'd probably need a computer with a sound card to process the digital tones, along with a connection cable to whatever radio you choose.

There are some ship-to-shore communications networks that could be of use, as they offer packet text-to-email capability (for a fee). So in addition to the material at the above link (such as winlink.org), have a look at www.shipcom.com and similar sites.

Also, search here for a post today by Varmint Al. He's got an extensive webpage on ham radio and this subject in particular.

One other thing - there are pre-configured Linux distributions loaded with lots of ham radio software; check out Harve's Hamshack and Shackbox Air.