PSK63 was developed as an intended RTTY contesting mode replacement, not
for conversation. PSK31 is too slow for contesting and has a preamble
and a postamble that slows turnovers down, so the idea was that 100 wpm
PSK63 would, overall, including faster turnovers than PSK31, be as fast
as RTTY for contest exchanges, and contesters would benefit from less
power needed, panoramic reception, less crowding, and faster
synchronization. In the contesting world, a rapid exchange and turnover
is more important than a faster typing speed. Peter Martinez designed
PSK31 for ragchewing and so selected 50 wpm as fast enough for
conversation for most typists.
Even though Don, AA5AU, a big-time winner of RTTY contests, said he was
just "blown away" about the possibility of PSK63 for contesting when I
showed it to him, I was unable to get it implemented into WriteLog, as
the author took a "chicken and egg" approach in which he said he would
not add PSK63 to WriteLog until it became popular for contesting! Since
WriteLog is so popular with contest winners, and did not support PSK63,
the mode never took off, except in Europe.
What might help would be for someone to convince the contest managers to
do something like adding a multiplier for PSK63 contacts, or perhaps
some other acceptable incentive, to make it worthwhile to use PSK63 for
contests.
Everybody would win, because so many PSK63 signals can fit into the
space of one RTTY signal, and with panoramic displays, you get a list of
callsigns to select from all presented to you, and can even highlight
zones or callsign areas you need for multipliers, etc..
73, Skip KH6TY
On 7/20/2010 7:03 PM, Ralph Mowery wrote:
----- Original Message ----
From: g4ilo <jul...@g4ilo.com <mailto:julian%40g4ilo.com>>
To: digitalradio@yahoogroups.com <mailto:digitalradio%40yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Tue, July 20, 2010 4:29:15 AM
Subject: [digitalradio] Re: Olivia vs. RTTY vs. PSK & spectrum efficiency
Just because a mode is better doesn't mean that people will want to
use it,
though, and I guess both RTTY and PSK31 are so established now that
you'll never
persuade people to give them up.
Julian, G4ILO
------------------------------------
While rtty can be replaced by other modes, they will not run on the 50
plus old
mechanical printers and the demodulators that go with them. Just as
some like
to run AM on the ham bands. Not that good of a use of bandwidth, but
just
something to play with that many enjoy. I doubt that many hams that
run the
digital modes can really type very fast and depend on the micros in the
programs. For the ones doing it in real time, psk31 probably has
enough speed.
