HF Radio Digital

[BigJohn]

Hey guys, does anybody here do any digital HF communications? I have been doing Pactor and some of the others for a while now. For security and ease of operations, you can't beat Pactor IMO. The software is free and the interface is much like Outlook. It is actually e-mail over radio completly free of any infrastructure. Error free , secure, and you don't even have to be at the radio to pick up your traffic. It's a store and forward system where you type your message, post it, and when another station connects to yours, your message is delivered to them and yours retreived if they have traffic for you. The only equipment you need besides a radio and a computer is a modem like a KAM+ available from E-Bay for around $125.00 bucks. You need a general or higher license for this so that's a real good reason to upgrade.

If there's any interest , I'll be happy to help.

Of course the ultimate survival communications skill is CW ;)

John

[C-ya]

Welcome to the group.

Sounds like an interesting thing to look into. I'm getting ready to try to PSK31 when I get a decent HF antenna set up. Not sure what I'm going to use yet.

[BigJohn]

PSK31 and MFSK16 was what I started on but it's limitations soon become apparent. You have to actually be at the station to send and receive it and it is prone to errors and anybody can monitor it. Pactor signals are error correcting and it's almost impossible to monitor. Also, you can send attachments in your message just like you would with a regular e-mail. The main rub is, the cost of a high speed Pactor modem is a real factor for most people because unlike Pactor 1, which can be sent with a KAM+, you need an SCS modem http://www.farallon.us/webstore/ to be able to do the high speed stuff. These use Pactor 2 and 3 and SCS has the only game in town as far as equipment goes. The nice part is, it's totally infrastructure independent. No internet required and that's always a good thing when it comes to WSHTF. :) Digital signals come smoking in when voice is impossible and that's what being a communicator is all about. Many people have HF radio stations and wrongly assume that they will be able to deliver traffic in an emergency.

Checkout http://www.winlink.org/ for lots more info and probably a better description than I can do.

Be sure and let me know when you get an antenna and we will try to make a contact.


BJ

[C-ya]

Thanks for the info and the links. I'll look into it more. I remember seeing some info on winlink when I was researching digital comms. Seemed interesting and doable, just haven't pursued it any further.

I'll hit you for a contact when I get set up.