John Becker, WØJAB wrote: > Most of what I have seen in the past has been ship's, boat's or whatever you would like to label then as sending position reports. That in turn *DO* end up on the WORLD WIDE WEB. But I can only speak for pactor.
It is important to differentiate between unattended stations and Pactor. Pactor just happens to be the mode most use, because it works well and automatically acknowledges or asks for repeats if the data is not received without error.
There are three problems with Winlink in particular which harm the ham community. The first is that most of the "hams" listed were recruited by Winlink and marinas so they can use the ham bands as a FREE long distance email service (marinas make money by selling the equipment and installing it because many do not have the technical knowledge to do that). This is why you see so many position reports - they are from sailors at sea. The problem is that the vast majority of those "sailor hams" have never operated in a shared frequency environment like the ham bands. They are used to "channels", as on the marine bands, and are not adequately trained to listen first for traffic. In fact, using a digital mode, most probably never listen to anything. They just transmit for a connect with a mainland Pactor station to get email.
The second problem is that one half of the communication is by an unattended, 24/7, robot station which CAN'T listen for traffic local to itself before it transmits.
The third is that Winlink fixed stations scan several frequencies, or bands, and if you try to connect with a station that has stopped scanning to work someone, you may call and call in vain for a connect on an alternate frequency, and therefore needlessly tie up a frequency someone else could use.
It is not feasible for a yacht far from shore to use the World Wide Web, unless they have a satellite data phone, which is not FREE, and all their money is probably tied up in their sailing yacht, so many just cannot afford a sat phone, which is now available, but it used not to be when Winlink started out.
So what is the solution? The real solution would be to use SeaMail, which only costs about $250 a year, and get all that "non-ham" traffic off the ham bands. The problem again is aversion to ANY cost, no matter how small, in addition to the fact that the number of SeaMail stations is smaller than the number of Winlink fixed stations.
The point here is that it is NOT Pactor that is the problem. That is only the mode used. The problem is thousands of sailor-hams that have little concern about transmitting over existing activity, and have never done any ham radio except Winlink email, since their ARQ will keep pounding away until they own the frequency or time out. Just monitor Winlink frequencies for a while. The remote station always (clients) transmits first, which triggers the mainland station. You will see the majority of interfering stations are the client stations, and the mainland stations will come on, usually stronger, and very quickly if the client is recognized.
Although every ham is required to listen first, and most do ((QRL) this is obviously not the practice in the segments of the bands allocated to automatic stations, so just stay out of there and the problem will seem to be much less.
No, Pactor is NOT a "junk" mode. It actually works very well for a lot of people. The real problem is the "sailor-hams", who are not hams at all in the way most of us are, but mariners using ham radio as if it were on channelized frequencies, and not listening first.
73 - Skip KH6TY
