Rick, My interests are similar to yours, ie, effective emergency comms, and just trying out all the different modes.
I have two main issues: 1. Being brand new to digital modes, I find it rather difficult to tell what mode I'm seeing on the waterfall. I recognize PSK, RTTY, MFSK16 (now), but after that I'm lost. Also, often times, I'm running software that doesn't go beyond the basic modes, so by the time I can get sw up and running that may be able to decode that exotic trace on the waterfall, the signal is gone! 2. Log keeping, I don't want to have 10 different log files, I want to have one. I use DXKeeper and WinWarbler and MultiPSK will interface to it, but I also run HRD/DM780, NBEMS, MixW, and several others that don't. But I have to wonder if it utlimately comes down to item 1. above. Hams (and people in general) stick with what they're familiar with. A good example - SSTV, I've spent hours runnng MultiPSK trying to figure out which variation of SSTV a signal is only to be rewarded with nothing. I've pretty much given up on SSTV for that reason. I keep plugging away at the rest of the digimodes, because I occasionally have success at decoding some exotic signal. And the real reward is finding someone in a QSO that wants to try other modes! Jeff -- KE7ACY CN94 ----- Original Message ----- From: Rick I have been concerned for some time about the lack of interest in the new modes, even though some of us try and promote them. Very few hams have any interest in digital modes to begin with. About half the hams here in the U.S. can not operate below 10 meters since you need at least a General Class license, and the great majority of General and higher class licensees do not ever operate, nor do they have any interest in operating digital modes, particularly keyboard digital modes on HF. Not only because it is not interesting to them, but many of them do not have typing skills. Because my interests are a bit narrower than most of you with a focus on accurate message capability particularly what works for practical emergency communication, there are exceedingly few who have the slightest interest in this. I sent out a request for some testing of these modes to a two county area. I have received responses back from just a couple of hams who I already knew had interest in this and have done a few tests in the past and one ham outside the two county area who monitors the list. That is very telling! [snip] .
