| Home |
| Search |
| Today's Posts |
|
|
|
#1
|
|||
|
|||
Lines: 29
Message-ID: X-Complaints-To: X-Abuse-Info: Please forward a copy of all headers for proper handling X-Trace: npbhgpngjbkmjfegdbdpiflmbcekedmfhojhikkbagflhcbold bkjgefapoafmbdejgjiijhoejndpjjmlanpllhjidhocfejpgi fielpnldphokpnaffidobadcejjogogldhcaolnmolkpnaldkl jeplihjnep NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 23 Feb 2005 10:44:57 EST Organization: BellSouth Internet Service Date: Wed, 23 Feb 2005 15:44:57 GMT Xref: number1.nntp.dca.giganews.com rec.boats.electronics:58943 IF you're going blue water cruising/sailing you might want to get a pactor II tnc to go with your rig. go to www.winlink2000.org and check out winlink which will give you email via pactor ii on hf. PSk is a good mode but doesn't offer store and forward capabilities yet it's efficient with low power and doesn't take a lot of bandwidth. be sure to check into which voice maritime service nets serve your areas of travel on mmsn.org where one of the net members has thoughtfully put together lists of ham maritime communications nets as well as some networks on the regular maritime hf bands. WElcome back to ham radio! 73 Richard Webb, amateur radio callsign nf5b active on the Maritime Mobile service network, 14.300 mhz REplace anything before the @ symbol with elspider for real email -- A good captain is one who is hoisting his first drink in a bar when the storm hits. |
|
#2
|
|||
|
|||
|
|
|
#3
|
|||
|
|||
|
Larry always goes on about PSK31 being better than PACTOR. Fact is that
they are apples and oranges. PSK31 is a very low speed interactive mode that is reliable in many cases. PACTOR is a high speed packet oriented mode suitable for email. If you are interested in email, PACTOR is the only real choice right now. If you want to just converse with others by typing on the keyboard then PSK31 is a good choice. There is no equivalence between the two. Doug, k3qt "Larry W4CSC" wrote in message ... wrote in : I want to get back into some form of free ham radio comms that would allow me to stay in touch with people while living in an RV or boat The boaters have been sucked into the most overpriced, proprietary-of- course, digital mode, Pactor. It's all nonsense. You can get the finest digital service on HF on the planet called PSK31....without buying more equipment, more modems, more wasted money.... The worldwide homepage of PSK31 is: http://www.aintel.bi.ehu.es/psk31.html PSK31 only requires your transmitter to be in the 10-20 watt output class because it will copy perfect text....right down so far in the noise you can't even hear the guy you are communicating with. Wanna hear it? That's easy. Tune any USB receiver to 14.070 Mhz, the "PSK-band" on 20 meters. You'll hear this funny "warbling" sound, many of them at once. On this website: http://www.qsl.net/wm2u/psk31.html You'll find pointers to all the different PSK31 programs to run on your computer....any Windoze computer will do.....like your boat notebook. PSK31 uses your computer's sound card and does all its stuff in software....no external "boxes" are necessary. I, personally, have always used WinWarbler: http://www.qsl.net/winwarbler/ but most hams are using Digipan: http://www.digipan.net/ Any of the programs work great. There's even versions for Linux and Mac. Winwarbler will copy three separate stations SIMULTANEOUSLY, and you can switch your transmit back to them with just a mouseclick. If you get your shore stations also setup with PSK31, you'll have reliable text comms from any point on the planet. I worked a Japanese station that was running a 20 meter dipole and 10 watts! PSK stations will raise hell with you if you hog the bandwidth with big powerful transmitters. It is simply amazing how far down in the noise the computer running this software can copy.....a station you can't even hear! As it's free.....give it a try! 73, and welcome back to ham radio DE Larry W4CSC NNNN AR |
|
#4
|
|||
|
|||
|
Larry,
How do I send an email to my non ham daughter in Orlando from 100 miles north of the BVI with PSK31? krj Larry W4CSC wrote: wrote in : I want to get back into some form of free ham radio comms that would allow me to stay in touch with people while living in an RV or boat The boaters have been sucked into the most overpriced, proprietary-of- course, digital mode, Pactor. It's all nonsense. You can get the finest digital service on HF on the planet called PSK31....without buying more equipment, more modems, more wasted money.... The worldwide homepage of PSK31 is: http://www.aintel.bi.ehu.es/psk31.html PSK31 only requires your transmitter to be in the 10-20 watt output class because it will copy perfect text....right down so far in the noise you can't even hear the guy you are communicating with. Wanna hear it? That's easy. Tune any USB receiver to 14.070 Mhz, the "PSK-band" on 20 meters. You'll hear this funny "warbling" sound, many of them at once. On this website: http://www.qsl.net/wm2u/psk31.html You'll find pointers to all the different PSK31 programs to run on your computer....any Windoze computer will do.....like your boat notebook. PSK31 uses your computer's sound card and does all its stuff in software....no external "boxes" are necessary. I, personally, have always used WinWarbler: http://www.qsl.net/winwarbler/ but most hams are using Digipan: http://www.digipan.net/ Any of the programs work great. There's even versions for Linux and Mac. Winwarbler will copy three separate stations SIMULTANEOUSLY, and you can switch your transmit back to them with just a mouseclick. If you get your shore stations also setup with PSK31, you'll have reliable text comms from any point on the planet. I worked a Japanese station that was running a 20 meter dipole and 10 watts! PSK stations will raise hell with you if you hog the bandwidth with big powerful transmitters. It is simply amazing how far down in the noise the computer running this software can copy.....a station you can't even hear! As it's free.....give it a try! 73, and welcome back to ham radio DE Larry W4CSC NNNN AR |
|
#5
|
|||
|
|||
|
krj wrote in
: Larry, How do I send an email to my non ham daughter in Orlando from 100 miles north of the BVI with PSK31? krj I've forwarded messages via email (for free, not $250/year) for people I've met on PSK31 (and other modes for that matter). All you need do is find a ham friend ashore who has internet service. You text up the messages to your daughter and send them to your scheduled ham ashore via any mode you like, PSK31 included, then they simply cut and paste the message into an email to your daughter, saving your replies to send back to you as 3rd party traffic next time you have a sked with them. OF course, this means you must have FRIENDS, not Sailmail business acquaintenances for pay. Some boaters (including ones listed here) are too damned independent for FRIENDS. You've met them, I'm sure. If you need business comms, ham radio isn't the place, of course. That hasn't changed..... CRAZY Larry also likes the idea of all ham-radio-equipped boats constantly transmitting their current position and data on another ham radio system called APRS, invented by Bob Bruninga at the Naval Academy so they could track lost cadets in Academy boats. Your daughter could just go to your personal webpage for your callsign at: http://www.findu.com/ From your very recent position report, she'd be relieved to see: A - Your still afloat, have power, are "there" and have been recently heard by an APRS reporting station in the network. B - Haven't declared an emergency. This, alone, would be very comforting, wouldn't it? She doesn't have to be a ham to look at the webpage, only you do. Just leave APRS running on the unused HF SSB rig with its packet modem when you're not using it. Silly me..... |
|
#7
|
|||
|
|||
|
Larry,
I was under the impression that pactor II or III were far more reliable and allowed faster transmission rates thank PSK31, is that incorrect? Thanks, Todd -- http://www.marinewireless.us http://boatblogger.com Larry W4CSC wrote: The boaters have been sucked into the most overpriced, proprietary-of- course, digital mode, Pactor. It's all nonsense. You can get the finest digital service on HF on the planet called PSK31....without buying more equipment, more modems, more wasted money.... |
|
#8
|
|||
|
|||
|
"thuss" wrote in message oups.com... Larry, I was under the impression that pactor II or III were far more reliable and allowed faster transmission rates thank PSK31, is that incorrect? Thanks, Todd All correct, but it is not fair to compare the two. They are targetted at two very different applications. Doug, k3qt s/v Callista -- http://www.marinewireless.us http://boatblogger.com Larry W4CSC wrote: The boaters have been sucked into the most overpriced, proprietary-of- course, digital mode, Pactor. It's all nonsense. You can get the finest digital service on HF on the planet called PSK31....without buying more equipment, more modems, more wasted money.... |
|
#9
|
|||
|
|||
|
"thuss" wrote in
oups.com: Larry, I was under the impression that pactor II or III were far more reliable and allowed faster transmission rates thank PSK31, is that incorrect? Thanks, Todd Packet, Pactor, AMTOR (or its commercial cousing SITOR) are all acknowledged modes. You send X characters to me....I add up the values and send you an ack or nack to either resend more characters of the next group or resend the old group again until I get it right. It's full error correction. That's what the transmitter and receiver are doing all that switching back and forth for. This is just great for binary file transfers or something that just HAS to be perfect. But, for text send/receive, it's not really necessary. However, for email the header must be perfect or it isn't going to happen. So, yes, Pactor, the chosen mode of the emailers, is necessary. Now, if we were to set the same radios on 10 watts in Pactor and PSK31, you'd first notice that PSK31 just keeps plodding along as fast as you can type. No acknowledgement packets are sent or desirable. The transmitter stays on the air until your fingers tire or you run out of things to type about. Then, it's the other guy's turn and you keep receiving him.... IN a packet switched type system, no matter what the name of the scheme, when things go wrong, they go VERY wrong, resending the same "packet" or "group" of characters over and over and over until the proper response is received from the other end. In good conditions, it may be faster than PSK31 IF you are a fast typist or are sending a text file. In bad conditions, it amounts to ZERO as the conditions are too bad for perfect copy on the other end. Some of the schemes reduced the number of characters per packet to just a few letters before the ack attempt. This, of course, reduces the transmit times and makes for poor throughput. Sitor/Amtor does this and is painfully slow. Unlike Pactor or the others, PSK31 is NOT an error-correcting digital mode designed to transfer documents and binaries perfectly. But, as it costs you NOTHING to play with, only the price of a cable from your headphone jack on the radio to the line input of your soundcard and the download time of a free software, you have nothing to lose in trying it. The softwares have an audio spectrum display so you can pick which of the little narrow PSK tracks for the software to decode and display. I invite you to pick the faintest, tiniest, weakest track on the display to test PSK31's capabilities. Pick one that fades in and out so you can see at what point the errors start in the decoded display. On the HF bands, PSK operators all hang out in about 1 SSB bandwidth, most notably 14.070 Mhz carrier frequency USB. That's where you'll find the most stations to test out your system. I'd like to make another note while spewing my nonsense. DO NOT BUY THE VARIOUS INTERFACE BOXES SOLD SO YOUR COMPUTER CAN KEY UP YOUR TRANSMITTER! I've never had one! I'm using plain-vanilla, but nice ham radio equipment that ALREADY has a VOX (voice operated transmit) circuit built into its microphone electronics. PSK31 has no need of rapid on-off switching, like pactor/packet/amtor/etc. If you simply switch the transmitter on manually then click the XMIT button on the software to start the tone generation, that works fine. VOX automates it as the transmitter will key up when it hears the tone. Set the VOX delay to zero as you want the transmitter to drop back to receive when the tone stops. Nothing could be easier. Hook a simple 1K ohm volume control into the cable between the computer's audio output (line out if you have it) and the transceiver's microphone input wherever you can hook to it, even by unplugging the mic. COMPUTER AUDIO OUTPUT---------|CW end / \ (wiper - center pin) /--------------------MIC INPUT of radio 1K Pot \ / GROUND CCW end There's your total electronic circuit to use PSK31.....cheap! Any old volume control pot between 500 ohms and 50K ohms works. This only reduces the volume of the tones as mic inputs are low level, also reducing hum by turning up the output of the computer and turning down this pot towards ground to compensate. Just barely off ground is where most dynamic mic circuits like it....just enough to get audio to key the VOX and modulate the mic input. Audio to the computer is much less critical. That and a copy of your choice in PSK31 software is all you need....and total fun on very low power (10-20 watts max!), which makes the PSK bands so many people can use it without interfering with each other. Great fun, even if it won't email home. Home needs to get off their asses and get their HAM LICENSES we've made SO easy to get, now! Another note to ANY DIGITAL MODE......DO NOT FORGET TO UNPLUG THE MICROPHONE! FCC TAKES A REALLY DIM VIEW WHEN IT HEARS AUDIO IN THE BACKGROUND OF ANY DIGITAL MODE because whenever the transmitter is on, it's transmitting that TV behind you on SSB while your digital tones are also on the air! Some radios with "data inputs" for the tones DON'T disconnect the microphone audio just because you plugged something into it. Test yours carefully.... |
| Reply |
| Thread Tools | Search this Thread |
| Display Modes | |
|
|
Similar Threads
|
||||
| Thread | Forum | |||
| Modifying Icom IC-M800 | Electronics | |||
| RDF for newbies and NN of KN | ASA | |||
| VANISHED (stolen?)- a new (and unique) 57' Beneteau | Cruising | |||
Hybrid Mode
