Joe wrote:
Dave Guimont wrote:
The reason for Echo (a two-user FM voice) escapes me also, Greg.
To me, money down the tubes...
I'll agree with that one also, a whole bird with one "Channel" seems like a HUGE waste. Cool? Yeah,, but single user uh,, nah.
I'm old skool oscar 6 & 7 and the old russian birds, FUN!
In preperation to a long distance balloon flight coming from Arizona soon, I experienced PSK31 for the first time the other day, and what a cool mode!
You think that's good... grab the most recent copy of QEX, and look over the technical testing of PSK31 vs. all of the newer modes that have popped up in the last four to five years, and try those modes out.
PSK31 is well into the "peak of popularity" portion of the bell curve, and obviously because it's popular, it's also fun.
But if you're into experimenting on the leading edge of the technology curves, try out some of the others mentioned in the article.
PSK is very popular because it has been around quite a long time at this point, and it's easy to do with a soundcard and a bog-standard HF rig. Luckily most of the follow-on modes are also that simple to set up, too.
According to the QEX article, PSK31 also has the *worst* performance in bad HF conditions -- and you've already seen how well it DOES perform.
So imagine modes that survive various forms of noise and fading even better than PSK31, and then know that they're here today.
Some of the work done by the WSJT and variants crowd for weak-signal work is rediculously good -- signals no human can copy are pulled out of the noise and show up on the screen.
To keep the post on-topic, 100W and a single Yagi for moon-bounce!
I remember reading about the Amateurs lucky enough to be able to work moon-bounce prior to the advent of the PC-as-analyzer type technology... Folks used enormous ERP and huge antenna arrays to work moon-bounce via CW, before these recent advancements. Now anyone with a tri-pod in a backyard and a "brick" amplifier on 2m can work the moon, from what I've been reading online. It's probably time I give it a try, but I haven't yet.
Amazing stuff. Lots of neat work going on in the digital modes these days.
Nate WY0X