I agree - here are my thoughts and plans for 2009. 1) The best idea to be implemented recently is Patrick's Reed-Solomon ID which is also supported by fldigi and will soon be supported by DM780. My implementation will continuously check the whole waterfall for RS ID's and let the user know when any are seen. Patrick's excellent idea makes it easy to detect the exotic mode being used.
2) SDR - even a simple SDR receiver such as the SoftRock http://wb5rvz.com/sdr/RX_V9_0/ provides a good 25kHz of bandwidth, so out digital mode programs can at the very least watch the whole digital portion of a band for activity and any RS ID's. I will start my own SDR console in July and the audio data will be available for other programs somehow - maybe TCP/IP, mailslots - I haven't thought this bit through 100% yet. So by the end of 2009 I hope to be using a simple SDR solution to monitor a band for digital activity. Simon Brown, HB9DRV www.ham-radio-deluxe.com ----- Original Message ----- From: Tony I'd like to propose a couple of ideas to the group to encourage the use of those digital modes that tend to sit idle much of the time. Seems to be a lot of unanswered CQ's these days so a little enthusiasm may go a long way.
