re "The Winmor implementation in PaclinkW (much to the dismay of the naysayers) has busy channel transmit control enabled."
I and others strongly encouraged Rick KN6KB to provide a busy frequency detector in SCAMP. We were optimistic when he agreed to give it a shot, and thrilled by the effectiveness demonstrated during the SCAMP beta; even Rick was surprised by the results. When SCAMP disappeared and WinLink failed to upgrade its PMBOs with the SCAMP busy frequency detector, cynicism returned. Many concluded that the WinLink organization simply prefers to keep "its" PMBO frequencies clear by QRMing "trespassers", rather than having to wait for the frequency to become available. WinMor's inclusion of a busy frequency detector -- hopefully one at least as effective as Scamp's -- is excellent. No knowledgeable amateur radio operator should be dismayed by this, though no one will declare victory until WinLink PMBOs stop QRMing ongoing QSOs -- either because they've been augmented with busy frequency detectors, or replaced by new servers that include busy frequency detection. 73, Dave, AA6YQ -----Original Message----- From: digitalradio@yahoogroups.com [mailto:digitalra...@yahoogroups.com]on Behalf Of David Little Sent: Thursday, March 26, 2009 10:03 PM To: digitalradio@yahoogroups.com Subject: RE: [digitalradio] No FCC data bandwidth limit on HF Re: USA ham rules Rick, I am excited about Winmor. I have been alpha testing PaclinkW, which incorporates Winmor, Packet, Pactor and Telnet. It provides rig control, accepts email from and ports email to Outlook or Outlook Express. The Winmor implementation in PaclinkW (much to the dismay of the naysayers) has busy channel transmit control enabled. I hope that the developer will start allowing connects in the near future. His decision to incorporate Trellis Coded Modulation, to me, seems a very good way to increase accuracy without sacrificing speed. I know it put US Robotics head and shoulders above the competition with 9600 bps in a 300 bps world. I had 3 of the USR HST Dual Standard modems when they were retailing at over $1100.00 each, and used them on a 5 node, 4 line dial up BBS with a gigabyte of storage in the late 1980s. I had to do battle with the telco, trying to convince them that dial-up could, in fact, support speeds above 300 BPS. Each Monday for over a year, I wrote to a different commissioner of the Georgia Public Service Commission until I got them to persuade the telco to replace a 1940s vintage switch with something from the previous decade. I finally succeeded. The switch (which was designed to service an Aircraft Carrier) was finally replaced with something designed for residential use. It was a long hard battle, but worth it in the long run. We face some of the same challenges today in the RF Digital arena. I don't think there is a limitation on Amateur radio for certain sound card modes. I believe the limitation is in acceptance of the bandwidth necessary to serve up email that is formatted and compressed. You may be better able to accept what I am saying if you look at the concept of horizontal and vertical chain of command and provision of service. For Ham to Ham, it is a horizontal plane. For Ham to served agency, it is more vertical. When you factor in NIMS, it gets much more specific. Where a text message that does not contain critical amounts, numbers, quantities, order amounts, audit info, etc... BPSK, RTTY, any of the non ARQ modes are fine; it is not critical info. For an IS-213 working through the system from request to supply to delivery, the ability to send compressed binary info in a formatted package requires a more serious protocol, with absolute error correction that doesn't rely on redundancy ( and the resulting decreased through put ) to get the info through. It takes a well planned and implemented transport layer to move that through the system, from RF to Internet and back to RF where internet infrastructure is damaged. I believe that Winmor may bring the sound card into this arena and make this a reality in a very cost efficient package. Perhaps this will attract more folks to give it a try, but it will always be greeted by some in the Amateur Radio Service as "Automated" and "Common Carrier"; even if it saves their Mother's life. This has more to do with being pragmatic than the complexity of the transport layer or protocol. That is the real downside of the entire discussion. We are seeing the stage set for a real battle in the economic universe for superiority of the world exchange choice. It was looking like the battle for the Dollar against the Euro would exert pressure from Governmental entities sole-sourcing the Pactor III protocol, with the revenue ultimately going to the Euro. With China and Russia loosing their appetite for American Debt, along with Opec willing to do anything possible to destabilize the American Dollar, the lines are being drawn.. Currently, it doesn't look good for the home team. If the IMF becomes involved, any traction that was being built against Pactor III as an off-shore provider will be lost in the slippery slope of world economic domination. Pactor may or may not die in the process, but I am afraid the process will render that a moot point that is of little consequence to any of with the other adversities we will be facing. On the MARS circuit, as well as SHARES, mixed mode nets are the norm. Traffic can be sent by MT-63 and acknowledged by voice, or digital. Fills can be requested and sent digitally, with the net reverting back to voice; and this turnover may happen many times each hour of operation. Bandwidth choice is only limited by conditions, distances, time of day, band and distance to deliver. I don't consider MARS to be any majority as far as a subset of Amateur Radio operators go. Army MARS has about 2700 members, and will be requiring NIMS compliance from it's members by 2010. IS 100,200,700 and 800 at a minimum, and the suggestion of IS802 to better understand what ESF2 is in the National Response Framework. Being able to directly interface with all major governmental entities or infrastructure providers is a very powerful tool, when it comes to getting traffic from one place to another; even if it is only to track deployment teams and assure their safe arrival or shadow their motion from one site to another. NTIA spectrum will be the long-haul backbone of RF communications by volunteer communicators. They have accepted the concept of wide bandwidth protocols, as they are already guarding every 3 KHz slice of their spectrum. A 2 KHz bandwidth mode still provides a guard band of 500 HZ on the top and bottom and still stays within the 3 KHz that is designated as a "Channel". With each assigned frequency, there is an USB and LSB choice, except when it caused the data to migrate into the Amateur band edges. It is actually well thought out. Why would a served agency want to rely on a communications provider that can't stop arguing long enough to move the traffic? I am in and out of this group as the tide tosses and turns, hoping to see some acceptance of the way things are going to be. I am still optimistic. In the mean time, I am still hedging my bets, and utilizing the spectrum that is available to me to explore new and better ways of getting the job done. As an aside, if you really want to see something that is slick, give Easy Pal a shot for sending text. Also ultra high resolution pictures with no scan lines that occupy 20KB of data on each end. 90 seconds to send or receive, with the ability to only request the individual blocks that weren't received properly to be sent again. We are also utilizing it in MARS. As I said, I am still optimistic, David KD4NUE -----Original Message----- From: digitalradio@yahoogroups.com [mailto:digitalra...@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Rick W Sent: Thursday, March 26, 2009 5:09 PM To: digitalradio@yahoogroups.com Subject: Re: [digitalradio] No FCC data bandwidth limit on HF Re: USA ham rules David, The thing that I find particularly attractive about WINMOR is that it is an open sound card protocol and it can be used in three forms: 200 Hz, 500 Hz, and 2000 Hz modes. Putting this capability together with its automatic adaptibility for conditions, it may be the break though of the year for e-mail messaging. It will not require user knowledge of error correction and FEC, etc., since that will be done automatically, just like it was for the SCAMP mode a number of years ago. What it may not have is the emergency features that I see in PSKmail which is peer to peer messaging and chat along with ad hoc server deployment which can never be possible with Winlink 2000. Put the right protocol with the right solutions and you have a fantastic synergy not possible with any other protocol. I don't think that many of us can agree with you about new sound card modes not having a future on ham radio unless they are of a certain type. They just have to be the right protocol that solves an actual need. 60 meters is off the table at this point since you can not even use emergency data modes on those frequencies. What may die is Pactor modes. Having one protocol sourced by one foreign entity is not a good thing. Open source solutions are a good thing. Will many hams use and actually practice using NBEMS? Thus far I have had no luck in my local and regional area. But then again, I can not even get the NTS folks to consider digital messaging other than Pactor, HI. I don't have any interest in NTIA and no one in our area is much involved with non amateur emergency traffic. I suspect that many areas have the same situation. But I appreciate your comments and they are important issues to discuss. 73, Rick, KV9U Moderator, HFDEC (Hams for Disaster and Emergency Communications) yahoogroup David Little wrote: > Skip, > > I use FLARQ and FLDigi on the FT-2000 Data Management Unit, when I > boot it from Linux. > > It allows me to do digital modes without an external computer. The > DMU also is networked via Ethernet. > > I was looking at MT-63 2K with FLARQ when WINMOR was announced, but > since it was a 2K wide protocol, I never gave it any more > consideration, as it would just be treated as the same annoyance, just > with different tonal qualities. > > Winlink has no future on Amateur radio spectrum. > > Anything more complex than RTTY or BPSK has little future on Amateur > spectrum. > > Other than a small core of folks willing to take the time to learn > something about ARQ, FEC, redundancy, error correction, and what makes > up a dependable transport layer - There is little future of any > digital mode with the complexity necessary to be efficient in times of > need. > > I do wish you well. I applaud what you are doing, but you are playing > to a hostile crowd if you expect to deploy any digital mode more > complex than RTTY or PSK on the Amateur Radio Spectrum. No matter > what it is, what it sounds like, what it carries, where it is going, > or where it came from; it is "Automated" or "Common Carrier" traffic. > Even the legitimate traffic on frequencies that amateur radio is the > secondary user of; same thing; always "automated" or "common > carrier". A very intelligent mantra, often used to describe > legitimate traffic by the primary users. > > The Common Carrier and Automated crowd are really having a hard time > dealing with 60m, and the majority of them haven't been able to find > it yet.... > > As I have stated before, I will use the amateur spectrum to do the > radio checks, and the NTIA spectrum to move the traffic. > > At present, I can handle the entire County EOC with one rig and > antenna, while having another rig and antenna devoted to Voice > operations. We have both Pactor III and Sound Card modes there, > multiple rigs, multiple antennas and in the same room as the 911 > operators and dispatchers. the EOC is a 5 second walk away in the > same building, and I can run much of the station remotely from a VPN > within the EOC complex. > > We have similar stations, with similar capabilities purchased for the > 2 hospitals. > > I have a similar (only better) station at home; currently minus Pactor > III, which I sold my SCS gear last year in anticipation of WINMOR. If > I can pick up another SCS controller reasonable, I will add it back > into my portable kit. > > We will have communications with the Air National Guard that will > handle distribution to the POD sites, as well as the NECN (National > Emergency Communications Network) which will give direct contact with > FEMA, the State EMA and all the alphabet soup entities. Outside of > that, traffic can be moved via voice on SHARES to the same entities, > then by voice or digital on the MARS circuit, and locally via VHF to > the amateur frequencies. We have licensed County police radio cars, > as well as portable VHF stations with antenna launching kits to help > with the local stuff until we can get the local amateur volunteers to > relieve them to allow them to return to patrol. The County Police > Chief, EMA Manager and EOC staff are all on board, and have funded the > EOC station out of county funds. We are in the process of further > training to merge their method of operations into the rules governing > the amateur radio license that they must hold to operate one of the > vhf stations. Out of the 50 we licensed last year, some are moving > toward general. I also work with 2 TSA Hurricane Coast Airports in > 2 states, where some of their employees have elected to get amateur > licenses and join the MARS program. > > All the important traffic will be moved in binary format, properly > formatted on NTIA spectrum. > > There is no common carrier or automated when it comes to NTIA > spectrum. They are pretty much beyond that, and tend to concentrate > on draining the swamp. > > I tried it on the Amateur spectrum, and found the alligators to be too > much of a distraction. > > Again, I do applaud you efforts and really wish you the best. For the > meantime, I will be working with the transport layer that is already > in place, on spectrum that allows it to be utilized. > > If the Amateur community embraces NBEMS, we will add that > compatibility into the setup. > > David > KD4NUE > > >