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August 26th 05, 08:58 PM

wrote:

snip

There's a fundamental divide appearing in radio modes nowadays.

Modes like Morse Code and the analog voice modes are real time, "direct
experience" modes. A human listens to the demodulated signal directly,
in real time.

The "digital" modes are fundamentally different in that there is
decoding beyond the demodulation process. A machine does the decoding -
the human does not 'listen' to the signal at all in most cases.

Which is great for people such as myself!

Look at PSK31 - you see a particular pattern on the waterfall, click on
it, and the decoded text appears. If there is interference, the text is
garbled, and there's not very much you can do about it. And what you
can do is a matter of equipment adjustment, not skill in listening.

Thank goodness for that! If listening skill was the main criteria, I
wouldn't be much of a Ham! Well hearing skills maybe.....

Because of this difference, it makes sense to allow certain modes -
like Morse Code - a place free of interference from "machine modes",
just like the trails where motor vehicles are not allowed.

I'm certainly all for keeping those accursed robot stations in their
own section of the bands (actually, I am not in favor of their existance
- I think they violate the spirit if not the law). How is a robot
station that wipes out sometimes dozens of QSO's any different from
certain Amateurs who have been known to broadcast "bulletins right over
top of ongoing QSOs?

Voice modes like SSB and AM are protected from modes like PSK31 and
RTTY. The spectrum allowed to those modes in the US HF ham bands
amounts to more than half the total spectrum available! If such
protection is good enough for SSB and AM, why not Morse Code?

I have to smile at the concept of SSB and AM being protected from my
wimpy little PSK31 signal.

I understand your analogy, but I don't think it quite hits the
fundamental divide point. Certainly RTTY and SSTV and ATV and HELL mode
have been around for quite a while.

- Mike KB3EIA -

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