While my primary interest in digital mode amateur radio is the keyboard QSO, I have spent the past few weeks extensively testing WINMOR, PSKMAIL, ALE, FLdigi with Wrap and FLARQ. All of these applications have essentially the ability to send files and messages via digital mode and with error correction. I am quite interested in HF initiated messages, a system whereby the ham does not need Internet access to initiate a message. WINMOR , as part of RMS Express, allows only peer to peer messaging at the moment but as it develops will add mailboxes that shift messages to the Internet where desired. However, WINMOR has a long way to go in its development and ,as it presently stands , is not particularly effective. Lots of promise for the future though. ALE , both the "standard" version and ALE 400 , are always quite useful but their mail interfaces seem to need simplifying.
After a few weeks of testing, Fldigi seems to have emerged as the application with the most "ecomm" message transfer interest. There are many groups of hams that are using FLdigi in emergency drills and sending mail or file transfers. Much has been written already about FLARQ but the recent addition (almost seamlessly) of WRAP files to FLdigi really is a significant development for those wishing to easily send messages that are error free. I still stand by Skip Teller's statement a couple of hears ago, that emergency communication will work best when hams are using "emcomm" applications that are the same applications they use for regular on-air activities. FLdigi with wrap files , and a few other bells and whistles, achieves this perfectly. I'm greedy and "want it all". Some applications allow mailbox type functions and some allow ham-to-ham direct connects, not all allow provide for both. With Fldigi ( and Multipsk in ALE400 ) you can easily send files ham-to-ham with error correction, In FL-digi you can easily do this with a large variety of digital modes, whichever one suits the conditions. However, what about mail transfers ? You can do that with Fldigi via the email client in FLARQ but I think my tests with PSKMAIL have established that the perfect fit for HF mail transfers is PSKMAIL. PSKMAIl is not ham-to-ham (use Fldigi for that) but PSKMAIL does allow you to send and retrieve email without Internet access. Essentially, PSKMAIL is an "add-on" to FLDIGI, it uses fldigi as the "engine" for many of digital modes FLDIGI supplies. PSKMAIL may eventually need a new name because you do not necessarily need to use PSK as the digital mode, Thor, MFSK, and DominoEx are also used. So in the digital ham's world.. on a daily basis the ham might use fldigi (or others like DM780 or Multipsk) for ragchew keyboard QSOs. They can now use FLdigi for the transfer of any files with error free capability , and with PSKMAIL added on ....they can connect to a server and pick-up or send email without the Internet. I hope to test PSKMAIL more in the next few weeks, my thanks to all those that are providing HF "servers" for us to access. Hopefully we can add a few more in North America soon. The standard at the moment for PSKMAIl transfers appears to be the higher speed PSK modes (e.g. PSK250) . That will provide fast transfers but also will need a good signal , thus a network of stations rather than relying on long-hop DX connections will improve things. Long-hop DX can be done , one PSKMAIL Server operator said he had a person in a boat off the coast of Africa use his 30M station in the USA to pick up mail, but a good server network will make things easier. While 30M seems a good choice for national and International PSKMAIL operations, I am also now beginning to thing amateur radio emergency groups my also want to explore 6 meters for some regional applications. Just a few reflections, 73 de Andy K3UK
