--- In digitalradio@yahoogroups.com, "Roger J. Buffington" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >
> OK, a couple of points. > > 1. No one is defending W1AW or the other practices that involve > transmitting without listening. I happen to think that all such > practices are morally wrong and legally questionable. Regrettably, the > FCC has already said that W1AW can get away with its broadcasts. A bad > call, but there you are. > > 2. Pactor is far more ubiquitous in its transmit-without-listening > practices than anything else on the air. The Pactor community flatly > refuses to change its practices, and they routinely QRM innocent QSOs > with impunity and indifference. Mark's superb petition will help curb this. > > 3. I sold my SCS modem because Pactor as a Keyboard-to-Keyboard mode is > as dead as Julius Caesar. No matter what a few outliers may say, Pactor > is dead as far as ordinary ham radio goes. It is now solely a mailbox > mode, used mainly to provide cheap, inefficient internet service to > those who are not able to hook up to the usual internet grid. Doesn't > sound much like ham radio to me. Other commercial services are a better > provider of this capability--it is not appropriate for amateur radio. > > 4. I am a yachtsman myself. I can attest that very few yachtsman use > amateur radio, let alone Pactor, for even a tertiary communications > system when at sea. > > 5. Winlink is largely irrelevant to emergency communications, > propaganda to the contrary. Having operated emergency communications in > numerous fires and earthquakes, I can attest that Winlink was never a > resource. The simplest modes, i.e. FM and SSB, provided the bulk of > amateur-supplied communications. Simpler is better. > > de Roger W6VZV > Fine Roger, You have your opinion and I have mine. Now if you can't be bothered to look for PACTOR keyboard to keyboard QSOS this is your problem not mine. When I look I can always find some. As for Winlink not been an emergency resource, I have read and still read otherwise in the radio amateur literature around the world. It has help in numerous cases in your country and in the tsunami that hit the Indian Ocean a few years ago at Christmas and if this humanitarian reason for Winlink's existance is not enough for you then I do not know what more to tell you. But it does not stop there, it can also provide free Internet e-mail for the Radio ham on the move globally (from the open seas to the bush of Australia, to the jungles of Africa, in Asia, in South and Central America and in many other parts of the "civilized" world, as we all like to call our western world today) and at the moment it is the only system that has a global network on HF and this is a great help for places with no communications infrastructure. So Winlink is not only for emergency communications, although it can be a big help in emergencies where FM/SSB and all bla bla modes cannot really help, except perhaps when you want to coordinate the fire fighters or other cases where accurate contain transfer is not necessary. If you just want to spoil a Great Radio Amateur Global Communication System just because sometimes af few ,ignorant perhaps, of it's users spoil your SSB QSO then go ahead and do it. This is supposed to be a free world but in a free world we should always be a bit more tolerant, don't you think? 73 de Demetre SV1UY P.S. as for automatic operations, don't forget that it is not only Winlink2000 and W1AW who do that. There are also PACKET BBSes (the real Robots where both ends have no human operator, the have Martians, there are Propnet stations, Beacons of all sorts, APRS DIGIS and many SSTV repeaters, PSKMAIL Mboxes, just to name a few, so if you tolerate their operation PLEASE do not complain about Winlink2000. Winlink2000 follows the bandplans just like all these systems do.
