Hi Jack,
There will always be varying viewpoints on various technical issues. The
difference today is that we have vehicles to actually allow the average
person to discuss them worldwide such as through the democratizing
process on groups like digitlradio.
There are those who do not really seem to grasp the paradigm shift in
the world because it can be messy (as democracy in action always is!)
There are others who strongly oppose democratization because they are
losing the power to control others. Individuals have nearly equal
standing at times, even against larger organizations. It also means that
extreme views, mentally unbalanced, etc., also get equal time and we do
not have the moderating of a larger power as we once had. Now the
individual must do the sifting and winnowing and there are many who are
not able or willing to do that.
What we have on groups like this one, is a Letters to the Editors
Column without an editor who had the power to filter out things that
they did not want to come through. Of course whether this was good or
bad depended upon your viewpoints. If we can not discuss these views,
then these groups would have little or reduced value because you never
knew who or what was being blocked.
The BBS concept (without the internet) was THE system in place for well
over a decade. We initially had worldwide packet HF BBS systems, however
they were less effective after the sunspots declined and the higher
bands became unusable. Packet does not work well on HF. It requires a
relatively high S/N ratio for any kind of throughput. The Aplink system
was set up with the Amtor protocol, to allow HF connections to BBS MBO's
(Mail Box Operations), since Amtor was nearly (not completely) error
free and could work much deeper into the noise. It only has a single
character case, so was similar to messaging sent via CW or voice nets.
These BBS's eventually were tied in to local VHF packet BBS systems so
that hams could send traffic worldwide although it could take days to
get through. Everything was done via amateur radio RF links for HF
although there were wormholes (practically speaking, the early
internet), that made big jumps to connect VHF packet.
When Pactor and Clover II became available, the BBS system moved to
these modes and renamed the system Winlink to include a MS Windows GUI
interface along with the two new modes providing the transport.
In the late 1990's the Winlink controllers realized that the system
traffic load was very limited and that the internet could be used to off
load most of the traffic. A Netlink system was added to Winlink, but I
did not get involved in that so only read a little about it in the RTTY
Digital Journal which at that time was THE vehicle of information for
digital operation until its failure.
The Winlink controllers met and came up with a new topology for Winlink
and developed an internet centric system that now uses the internet to
route traffic on a worldwide system with varying distances for the RF
side to gain access to the internet. This can be a mile or 1000 miles or
more, can be on VHF or HF, but removes the forwarding traffic off the
amateur frequencies. If they had not done this, the necessary BBS
forwarding would not be possible to support on HF. And instead of
messages going through the internet in a few seconds, it would still
take days to reach the recipient.
Unattended HF Beacons are generally not legal to operate here in the
U.S., but perhaps your rules allow you to do this? Using a non standard
mode will limit you to few other potential users. Pactor is not very
hard on switching of rigs. Amtor was a bit much at times, but with many
rigs intended to be QSK these days, or close to it, I would not be the
slightest bit concerned about using Pactor due to switching issues.
Your experience with PSKmail is similar to mine. Many, many, hours spent
trying to get it to work with no practical results. Even when I have a
Linux system that I can dual boot into for experimenting.
73,
Rick, KV9U
vk4jrc wrote:
Hi Rick,
I just hope this FCC thing does not make people turn sour on the
hobby, hobbies are meant to be fun!
I guess the reason for my Packet interest is the stand alone mailbox
aspect of it, no Internet connection needed. The PBBS is a repository
of messages sent by anyone and retreived by the addressees or anyone
who wants to read a general bulletin etc. Whilst HF 300 baud is slow
etc, I am not sending pictures etc, only text. The beacon also acts
as a method of determining propagation too. I have a KAM XL fo my TNC
which has good features. My SCS PTC TNCs also have Packet, but the
mail box setup is not as good, however they do have robust packet
mode, which is more reliable than ordinary HF packet.
Don't mention pactornot interested :-( Its a T/R relay destroying
mode which by operation, is hungry on my portable power budget :-)
PSKMail? Many hours spent
