Demetre, It is possible that SCS did license Pactor at a later time. It seems to me that other companies tried to implement the memory ARQ function with limited success. This feature is not necessary for Pactor to operate, but it does help greatly with weak signals. However, if a company licenses a product, they normally get some kind of source code or something of value that makes their product equal to their competition they are buying it from. And there is no question whatsoever that the AEA, HAL, and KAM products Pactor implementation simply did not work as well as SCS's.
The only company here in the U.S. that I am sure had a license from SCS was Gwyn Reedy, W1BEL's, Paccomm Company. I think I recall that he purchased the boards, but at least the firmware from SCS. He used different packaging and a minor feature or two to try and differentiate his product, but discovered that he could not really compete and eventually discontinued production and sales. Sadly, Gwyn was killed in a vehicular accident only a year ago:( He was a major promoter of packet radio and equipment. The reason that companies could duplicate Pactor without a license is that initially it was more of an open standard intended for ham radio use. The principals of SCS are hams. It was not until Pactor 2 and then Pactor 3 that it became a highly protected product. Even so, I have a letter in my files, which I can not seem to find at the moment, but I think I still have someplace, from Bill Henry at HAL discussing this issue as I was concerned about it before buying the HAL P-38 modem. This was before the invention of P2. Pactor modes do not have any miracle abilities for weak signals. What they do have is the ability to combine a number of enhancements in one protocol to make it work at a highly optimized level under varying conditions. Nothing like that exists with sound cards because thus far there has been no interest by those who have the ability to write this kind of software to do so. Some of us have asked and they have said their focus is on keyboard chat modes to the exclusion of high speed messaging. For weak. error free signals, I have been very impressed with the new FAE 400 mode and this is the first sound card mode that can work better than Pactor in weak signals and with similar bandwidth (< 500 Hz) but not quite as fast under better conditions since it can not change speeds. The wide FAE mode (faster baud rate and faster throughput) can not compete well with weaker signals and the width is a problem when you also consider the throughput. Pactor 2 is still the best narrow mode protocol at this time. Pactor 3 is much the same except intended for commercial channels where you have the space to widen out tremendously after the initial < 500 Hz negotiation to determine if the other station is a P1, P2, or P3 station and then what kind of conditions are present. I don't know of any PSKmail use in the U.S. There have been no comments on this group of success with this mode here although I think there may be at least one server? In order for it to gain any traction it would have to run natively on Windows. Even then there is no guarantee of success, but I know that I would be very interested if someone did open it up for cross platform use. 73, Rick, KV9U Demetre SV1UY wrote: > > Well my old KAM Controller with it's addon PCB for supporting PACTOR 1 > definatelly has Memory ARQ. Memory ARQ is a must for PACTOR protocol. > There is no PACTOR without memory ARQ. > > That is the main reason why PACTOR is a QRP mode!!! Especially with > PACTOR 2 people have managed to access a mailbox in Germany from a > mobile station in Australia on 20 meters, a short mobile aerial and > only 16 mWatts of power. Some QRM they would cause to the other > spectrum users! hi hi hi!!! > > As for licensing yes it was licensed. I do not think that any serious > american company does reverse engineering. > > Pity you sold it because BMKmulti performs as good as an SCS Modem in > PACTOR 1 Rick. > > Well as you see in todays modes, nothing comes close to PACTOR-2 never > mind PACTOR-3's performance. Not even the military modes because with > a little noise they lose the link. They cannot be FAST and ROBUST like > PACTOR-3. The military ones also need more than 3 KHZ bandwidth. > > Only perhaps PSKmail and FLARQ HF Radio e-mail Systems are getting > there slowly, but their speed leaves a lot to be desired. The best > they can do at the moment is perhaps 200 bps using PSK-250, which is > the same as PACTOR-1, whereus PACTOR-2 can go up to 800 bps and more > with realtime compression. I wouldn't even dare comparing PSKmail's > PSK250 with PACTOR-3! Their next step would be PSK-500?? if there is > such a beast. Also there is still no memory ARQ built in these > systems, unless if this has changed by now. > > Anyway PSKmail has quite a few followers in USA and I hope it will > have more because it is a soundcard mode and anyone can get on it very > easily. > > That will not keep the anti semi-automatic guys happy, but such is > life I'm afraid. > > This is one more reason for everybody to complain against RM-11392 > petition to your FCC. Unless if you want to go back to the Medieval > Times for Digital communications in the Ham bands. > > >> 73, >> >> Rick, KV9U >> > > 73 de Demetre SV1UY > > > > Announce your digital presence via our Interactive Sked Page at > http://www.obriensweb.com/drsked/drsked.php > > > View the DRCC numbers database at > http://groups.yahoo.com/group/digitalradio/database > > Yahoo! Groups Links > > > > > > >
