Alan, I would have to say that your belief that there is some tone in my message is unwarranted. Everything that I comment on is hopefully as transparent as possible. It is true that many of us don't care for some of the puff and exaggeration that is sometimes promoted. But I know that in talking with you in the past, your responses seem very reasonable and knowledge based.
I probably understand the system at least as well as most digital hams and have asked many, many questions, some of them privately. How you can somehow view this as an attack seems over the top, especially for you. (For some others in your group, anything that is not glowing support is viewed as being negative). For the record, I did not find an explanation of the Pilot station on the web site where one would think it would be clearly explained and I appreciated your clearing this up. I do not share the view that having multiple networks is necessarily good if that makes things more complex (increases the potential for failure). These networks do fail and they sometimes have long delivery times, but the promoters tend to gloss over such information and make it sound like there is 100% up time. There up time is very good, but nothing is perfect. If I send a message with one system and the message does not go through, then I suppose I could try another system as an alternative. But would I even know that there is a problem? Probably not until much later, and by then (hours later) the message that was bottlenecked, may be finally getting through. You did not mention it, but isn't the main value of using the Winlink 2000 systems is the ability to route traffic through many different methods, primarily internet, but also VHF and HF and find the recipient at any point in the system, even if they change location? Just like having web based e-mail vs. fixed ISP e-mail. No other system has this feature. By the way, another ham and I have tried to use the HFLink system recently. He had trouble connecting but later in the day was eventually able to do it and I received duplicate messages just short of an hour after he sent them. Not too bad for time, although this was a one line message. He was able to use the ARQ mode and should have been able to send a much longer message. I also tried to connect with several of the Pilot stations, but no luck so far. I have been able to do this in the past. I sincerely believe that it is vital to have many available stations so that you have redundant NVIS coverage as well as longer skywave propagation for those more isolated areas or due to conditions at that moment. Otherwise you wind up being like existing systems which could be very difficult to connect to when you need HF connectivity. Especially if you have an emergency station operating on lower power with mediocre antennas! Many of us are surely impressed with the tremendous dedication it takes to set up and maintain a 24/7 operation. I know that I appreciate this very much. Few hams operate digital modes, but almost none will take on that kind of responsibility. For example, some of us have considered a Winlink 2000 Telpac (Packet RMS) at one time, but did not do it. Setting up an HF system that is constantly monitoring many frequencies on different bands and can suddenly start transmitting at any time, means that personal operation may have to curtailed. One "local" ham had an experimental Telpac for a while but eventually felt that having a Linux based IRLP node might be better for more practical use. I really don't see much happening in our area with Winlink 2000 on HF, but I know that some hams in the Section do use it for VHF. The tremendous advantage that HFLink has is the sound card access and Winlink 2000 does not. It is that simple. They do not compete since HF Winlink 2000 is simply not available to 99% of hams and HFLink is available to at least a few percent which would include nearly all of us on a group such as this one that has radio amateurs who are interested in digital modes, even if not necessarily emergency use today (but there is always tomorrow:) I knew that you were planning to go to a full blown e-mail messaging system, but either this has not been promoted by your group (which seems unlikely) or I completely missed it. I am not sure how you use these different modes: AMD, DTM, and DBM, or why, but is this automatically done when you connect depending upon the size of the message and whether you have certain kinds of software? I have standardized on Multipsk for any ALE/FAE operation. Does this software work transparently to set up the correct modes? 73, Rick, KV9U Alan Barrow wrote: > Hello Rick, > > Your tone makes me suspect this is yet another attack on a system you do > not understand or care for, but I'll assume your questions are sincere > and try to answer them. :-) > > >> I have often wondered why they are called pilot stations. That sounds >> like they are the early experimental ones? Or does that mean something else? >> >> >> > We also used the term "anchor" stations. Pilot as in "guide". Known > functional, debugged, available on published frequencies, with operators > committed to helping new stations work out kinks in their setup. One of > the biggest issues with new digital modes is for people to have a known > good station to test against. I've fought this with friends, where you > don't know if either of you have it right. > > ALE usage on ham bands really took off once we had stations available > for connect 24x7. I know from past posts you do not believe this, but I > see the activity and new stations every week. > > No deep dark science, the pilot stations idea came out of a conversation > Bonnie and I had when I commented it was much easier to get an ALE > station running on MARS since there were multiple stations available > 7x24. We agreed we needed this for the ham side, kicked around some > concepts, and the Pilot station approach was born. For what it's worth, > anyone wanting to be a pilot station has to meet several criteria > including: History of 7x24 availability, multi-band capability, > commitment to participate for N months, Internet access, etc. > > They also happen to be messaging/bbslink backends and are part of our > core infrastructure. Unlike some other messaging systems, we operate on > common frequencies. > > We've also focused on obtaining geographic coverage. Right now we have > very good coverage of N/Central America 7x24. We don't need 14 pilot > stations in 4 or 6 land, etc. We are actively looking for stations to > come on in EU, AP, S America, Africa, etc. There are hams active on ALE > in these areas, but other than OZ and HK none have made the commitment > to be a pilot station. > > >> What is the real difference between using SMTP vs Winlink 2000's >> network? What does it mean for the users? >> >> > 1) Redundancy. You can route messages directly via the internet, or via > winlink. ISP's can have outages, etc. Redundancy is always good > > 2) Like it or not, winlink is the defacto emergency messaging system for > most hams, and certainly for MARS. So having WL2K inter operation was > important, and it allows non-pactor stations to communicate with the > EOC's, etc. > > 3) Like it or not, the WL2K infrastructure is a known, defined, and > functional messaging system built around the ham BBS paradigm. At it's > heart is the same W0RLI/F6FBB BBS interface, and it's easy to interface to > > >> It would seem that going >> through the HFLink system and then the Winlink 2000 system would add >> unnecessary layers of complexity to a very complex system and internet >> routing. >> >> >> > See above. Multiple network paths and inter operation/bridges are a good > thing. They add no complexity to the users. Accessing the WL2K messaging > infrastructure is no more complicated than sending via SMTP, and a very > large percentage of the ham HF email userbase is active on WL2K. > > >> What does it mean when you say "according to the needs and availability >> of the resource"? >> >> >> > There were several design objectives to the HFLink & MARS ALE bbslink > system: > > 1) Support of HW ALE radios. They are pretty much locked out of pactor, > multi-line messaging, etc. You can send, receive, list, delete messages > from a HW ALE radio over ALE/BBSlink > > 2) Some radios/software do not have DBM/DTM capability. Some controllers > have it, but it's not quite "right" in terms of compatibility. So again, > we support AMD as a "least common denominator" while extending into DBM, > then HW TNC modes, and ultimately the full suite of mil protocols. On > MARS we will extend into the high speed modems as well since they are > legal there. > > 3) Sometimes you need a single line, sometimes more. AMD works great, is > available to pretty much all HF ALE stations. We still use it quite a > bit even though the multiline modes are available. > > Have fun > > Alan > km4ba / afa2ns > > ------------------------------------ > > Announce your digital presence via our Interactive Sked Page at > http://www.obriensweb.com/sked > > Check our other Yahoo Groups.... > http://groups.yahoo.com/group/dxlist/ > http://groups.yahoo.com/group/contesting > http://groups.yahoo.com/group/themixwgroup > Yahoo! Groups Links > > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > > No virus found in this incoming message. > Checked by AVG. > Version: 8.0.100 / Virus Database: 270.3.0/1501 - Release Date: 6/13/2008 > 6:33 AM >
