Larry wrote:
"Steve" wrote in
oups.com:

Too bad sailmail got attached to it, instead of public domain code.

Larry
--http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEJmcvTzYfo&mode=related&search=
Hmm. Maybe it wasn't pactor I was thinking of but an alternative
protocol for the same purpose - email via HF.

I am sure I heard about a group working on such a thing, but on
reflection, you must be right that it coldn't be a PC implementation
of Pactor2/3



Pactor's big draw was being able to send binary files over HF, which I
personally think is stupid, but to each his own poison.

If you ever get a chance to play with PSK31, an open source ham radio
mode invented by a variety of contributors, you're in for a treat. PSK31
is useless for binary file transfers, it doesn't ack/retransmit. But
what it does is occupy a bandwidth of only 31 Hz. A hundred stations fit
inside the bandwidth of one SSB voice transmission.

The amazing part is its uncanny ability, simply using only your
soundcard, to detect and print perfect copy on a signal so weak you can
hardly see him on the PSK31 tuning display and you cannot detect his
signal is even there in the noise with your ear!

As a matter of fact, it can copy multiple weak stations, SIMULTANEOUSLY!

I've always liked WinWarbler:
http://www.dxlabsuite.com/winwarbler/
The main display is the top picture. The tuning display "waterfall" is
under the buttons and scrolls slowly down as time goes by. You pick one
of the 3 simultaneous "channels", that automatically match your
transmitter audio tone pair to the station you choose to print.

You click on a channel bar, let's say the Green Channel 1 bar to chose
that as the active channel. Then you place your mouse cursor over the
little signal trail on the waterfall spectrum display and click. Channel
1 starts printing what that guy is typing, even the faintest trace you
can see in that picture will print nearly perfect. PSK operators rarely
use more than 10 watts, even on the other side of the planet, to keep
from saturating your receiver. Speaking of receiver, Notice the
waterfall display's width is the same as an SSB channel. It was designed
that way to work with the simplest of ham SSB transceivers...about 3Khz.
Using the tone generator output from your soundcard's audio line out
jack...to the mic input of the radio, the warbling tone pairs will create
a two-tone very narrow PSK signal from your SSB transmitter, unless you
overdrive it. A simple volume control pot can attenuate the audio from
the computer to the mic input jack on the radio. It doesn't key on and
off and wear out the relays like Pactor. It transmits continuously until
all the letters you've typed are consumed and you have turned off the
transmitter, much like old RTTY teletype was/is.

Download Winwarbler and install it on your laptop. Simply plug the
earphone jack of any HF SSB receiver that covers the ham bands into the
computer's line in audio jack on the soundcard and you can play with
monitoring PSK31 or PSK63 transmissions very easily. PSK on 20 meters is
ALWAYS on 14.070 Mhz on a digital SSB receiver. In the bandwidth of the
SSB 3Khz receiver, you'll hear ALL the stations coming out of the
speaker. The computer will pick one of them when you click each channel
over a different trace on the waterfall screen. The chosen channel
transmit is simply a matter of typing way ahead while answering the other
guy's transmission in the typing buffer box, then pressing the TX button
to generate the PSK tones from your soundcard to match his signal until
you are ready to give him a turn, once again, or pass it along to more
than one station in a network.....

Now all you need is someone you can call with a working email client
willing to copy your emails from his email window to the WinWarbler
transmit window and from your Winwarbler reply back to his email client's
window for reply. You don't need no stinking sailmail...(c;

Larry
What's the throughput of PSK31 vs Pactor III?