My experiences parallel yours to a great extent except that I got rid of my HAL equipment probably before you bought yours.
Until recently, there really were no soundcard ARQ modes that could do a full ASCII character set, but now we have FAE 400 which is amazing similar to Clover II. I would very much like comments by those who still make Clover II contacts and compare it to FAE 400. I too very much prefer the linked modes and the only errors on the screen are typos:) Just from recollection, it seems that FAE 400 can maintain a link and provide throughput under weak signal condition where Clover II would link but not have any meaningful data throughput. Of course under good conditions, Clover II will work much faster. I really liked Clover II and it was nice to actually work Ray, W7GHM, a few times even if we rarely had much throughput. Even then there were only a few operators except for the Winlink system which used both Clover II and Pactor. 73, Rick, KV9U F.R. Ashley wrote: > > I've often wondered the same thing. I got on Amtor back in the Commodore 64 > days and later into Pactor with my first PC. I got rid of my PK-232MBX but > still have my HAL DXP-38 that I turn on every day. There are still a > handful of us Clover diehards on 20 meters, 14.065.50 LSB, and sometimes we > will switch to either Amtor or Pactor just for fun. I think most owners of > HAL gear were contesters and never got into the linked modes for a good > ragchew. I agree about most hams not wanted to purchase a TNC for the > linked modes. If my DXP-38 dies, I'd buy another one the next day! > I tune around each day but so far no Pactor or Amtor CQs to be heard; maybe > I'm listening at the wrong times. I still think the linked modes are more > fun, especially Clover. > > 73 Buddy WB4M > >
