I agree completely with Sholto. As I mentioned previously, the asynchronous ARQ modes don't have any problem with reasonable speed switching time. In fact, this is one of the reasons for the move to develop more ham friendly ARQ modes and away from the legacy hardware modes that were impractical to implement on a computer due to the tight time frame.
My preference is to key via rig control, since you only need one COM port to do this. In order to have both rig control and PTT keying would require two separate COM ports. It will be interesting as we hear more about the new protocol that Winlink2000 is developing for sound card use and their claim that it will compete favorably with Pactor modes. Currently, FAE400 is the best asynchronous ARQ sound card implementation we have for the text data portions of the bands and can still work deep into the noise. We also have the NBEMS suite with the fldiig and flarq programs providing the synergy to ARQ many of the commonly used modes. A while back I contacted Tigertronics and asked them about providing hardware PTT control if they but they felt that they did not want to move in that direction since they specifically did not want to use a COM port and wanted to keep their interface design as simple as possible to work with most any possible rig and software program. 73, Rick, KV9U Sholto Fisher wrote: > Bonnie and all, > > I use the SignalLink SL-1+ (older version, not USB) for ARQ modes > successfully. I use MultiPSK and the ARQ modes I have tested and had > working are: ALE 141A, ALE400, Pax/Pax2 and Packet. > > As there is no sound card Pactor (or AMTOR) ARQ there is no way to see > if it works but I think it probably wouldn't and almost definitely not > on AMTOR. > > But with ALE400 you have a better mode than Pactor-1 anyhow. > > 73 Sholto. >
