John, You have confirmed what others already know about P3. I sold my PTC IIex last year, when the Winmor protocol was announced to be in development. It should introduce an ARQ mode to compete with P3, but will not replace it. I had the SCS in a go kit with either a Yaesu FT-897D or and Icom IC-7000, manual antenna tuner, switching power supply, sound card interface, USB to 8 Serial port converter, communications speaker and sometimes an auto tuner. http://www.se-hams.com/html/emcomm1.html That go kit has also found it's way into the Netcomm Magazine, as well as World Radio in the past year. It allowed me to setup remotely, string a dipole (actually put a furniture moving pad on top of the car and a tripod to be a center support, with ends staked to ground) in NVIS configuration. Then, the best demo was to send email (actually SMS messages) to various volunteers (read unbelievers) cell phones. For spice, I could include the location, time and frequency to show how unlikely it would be for me to connect to a RMS at that time of day, on that band, covering that distance. When this got boring, I substituted the rig for an Icom IC-703+ and lowered the maximim operating potential to 10 watts. With that combo, I could connect to around 80% of the RMS stations that I picked based on time of day, frequency and distance. I know there will always be folks that will not accept P3 within the amateur spectrum. It is a real shame, because it could really make the Amateur Radio Service stand out in an emergency with serious loss of infrastructure. As it is, the Winlink system is really concentrating on the MARS services and direct to the served agencies on NTIA spectrum. One major catastrophe, and the lack of the amateur community to move high volume traffic over long distances may bring unexpected consequences if the Amateur Radio Service is evaluated as compared to the MARS services. The jury is still out on that. But, as you have stated, P3 does an amazing job of connecting and moving data at much higher than expected speeds under the worst of conditions. Add the ability to utilize binary (compressed) format with attachments of which the size limit can be controlled on the fly by collaborating with the RMS operator, or event specific, routing formats, and priority determination by subject line... You end up with a protocol that can move a served agency's traffic in the format that they are accustomed to using, to be retrieved by the intended agency, using their WL2K system; already in the EOC, or their agencies support group. Winmor and P3 will serve side by side in the RMS stations in the near future; bringing the best of both worlds. But, when speed, accuracy and ability to cut through the worst of conditions are the criteria on which success is determined; P3 will still come out on top. David KD4NUE
-----Original Message----- From: digitalradio@yahoogroups.com [ <mailto:digitalradio@yahoogroups.com> mailto:digitalra...@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of John Bradley Sent: Monday, February 23, 2009 3:48 PM To: digitalradio@yahoogroups.com; hfl...@yahoogroups.com Cc: multi...@yahoogroups.com Subject: [digitalradio] on another note ------------- S N I P ------------------------- Over the past couple of weeks I have been testing a SCS PTC2 usb modem with a pactor3 license, and have come away amazed and humbled by what this thing can do. It is faster than ANYTHING else I have tried, including RFSM8000, and works further into the weeds than anything else I have tried. I have connected to a RMS station midday close to 1000 miles away on what I would call a "dead" band. I have connected to RMS stations at least 500 miles from me on 80M well into mid morning, and resumed these connections by about 3PM , still when nothing else could be heard on the band. I had in the past heard the claims that this modem would work 10db into the noise. At the time my reactions was "yah,right!!!" but it really does. If you have a chance, try it out . So my thinking has undergone an abrupt change of direction, from using soundcard modes with internet access, to using P3 for primary links and sound card modes for the last mile or so.. and would like to hear other opinions.we all know the givens about pactor: the modems are expensive, the operators insensitive, proprietary hardware and software etc etc. but how could this mode be incorporated with current soundcard software? John VE5MU
