I was able to do additional testing today of the NBEMS (Narrow Bandwidth Emergency Messaging System) as well as the ALE/FAE 400 modes with a station not far from me. This is the kind of test I was hoping for with daytime 80 meter NVIS operation with modest dipoles. The station was not my "regular" digital friend but another ham who I have been recommending he considering these new technologies.
Using John, VE5MU's suggested frequencies, I set the rig up on 3584 and the other station called on the ALE/FAE 400 mode where we had a very nice ARQ chat. This mode is hard to beat for casual use and avoids all the usual back and forth BTU stuff:) The one thing that you have to remember to do though is to ID at the appropriate time interval. It is easy to forget to do this. So I just drop a DE KV9U from time to time. We then switched over to NBEMS running 50 watts on his end and 25 on mine and using the fastest PSK250 mode. Now this high baud rate may not work all that well on HF if there are any propagation issues, but with a fairly solid signal and low noise, it performed surprisingly well, even for chatting. Of course neither of us can type in the 400 wpm range:) We tried dropping the power levels down to the 5 to 10 watt level and still got throughput, but 25 to 50 watts did seem optimum. Unlike ALE/FAE 400, NBEMS does not have an ARQ chat mode. Starting out on non ARQ chatting, I then sent my usual test message, the Gettysburgh Address, which is around 1400 ASCII characters and it went through quite well with minimal retries. The message was successfully stored in his ARQreceiving folder. We went back to chatting in the FAE 400 mode as we both really like the quasi duplex operation. As I have mentioned before, it is very much like the way the Clover II mode works. So after signing with the "local" station, I left the rig on the same frequency and surprise, along comes Bill, N9DSJ later on this afternoon. So that was a most pleasant contact. I might mention that because of the new configuration in the my shack, I can have both Multipsk and NBEMS on screen and both monitoring at the same time. Multipsk is running CI-V control to the ICOM rig via my homebrew interface and the NBEMS program is ready to key the rig via the Unified Microsystems interface I recently purchased and built for this purpose. This makes it very easy to quickly switch between programs although you can not transmit at the same time. Do any of you want to try and make a connection with stations near you, or within range? Higher bands could be used of course for longer range. Do the VE5MU frequencies of 3584, 7038, 10136, 14094, 18104, 21094, seem to be good choices? 73, Rick, KV9U
