Well, WINMOR was released Friday evening and I would estimate about fifty hams were on the air testing over the weekend. The outcome? It performed really badly! Digital mode enthusiasts here are used to the amazing performance of ALE400, Olivia, or PSK ARQ with NBEMS. WINMOR's debut weekend saw thruput outcomes worse than packet at 300 baud!
Don't worry, an updated version taking in to account the beta testing results is due to be published today. Assuming it fixes some of the connect problems, WINMOR and the parent package "RMS Express" look very promising. What is promising? It is very easy to set up and use. The email client works very well. The Telnet side of it works perfectly, don't want to send your message via an HF QSO? Just send it via Telnet. By the way, a log of a "session" looks like this... 2009/09/21 01:51:04 0.2.0.1 *** Connected to: NY3J @ 500 Hz at 2009/09/21 01:51:04 2009/09/21 01:51:15 0.2.0.1 [RMS Express-0.2.0.0-B2F] 2009/09/21 01:51:15 0.2.0.1 ; K3UK DE NY3J (FN20MC) > 2009/09/21 01:51:15 0.2.0.1 [RMS Express-0.2.0.1-B2F] 2009/09/21 01:51:15 0.2.0.1 ; NY3J DE K3UK (FN02) 2009/09/21 01:51:15 0.2.0.1 FC EM VBGWMA1Q6D04 210 196 0 2009/09/21 01:51:15 0.2.0.1 FC EM Q4NO7OSRQP7D 221 203 0 2009/09/21 01:51:15 0.2.0.1 F> 26 2009/09/21 01:51:41 0.2.0.1 FS YY 2009/09/21 01:51:41 0.2.0.1 *** Sending VBGWMA1Q6D04... 2009/09/21 01:51:41 0.2.0.1 *** Sending Q4NO7OSRQP7D... 2009/09/21 01:52:41 0.2.0.1 FF 2009/09/21 01:52:41 0.2.0.1 FQ 2009/09/21 01:52:41 0.2.0.1 *** Session End 2009/09/21 01:52:52 0.2.0.1 *** Disconnected at 2009/09/21 01:52:52 2009/09/21 01:52:52 0.2.0.1 [Session Stats:] Duration: 1.80 min Bandwidth: 500 Mode Shifts: 1 Decode Attempts: 5 Weak R-S Decodes : 5 Weak R-S Sums: 0 Strong R-S Decodes: 0 Strong R-S Sums: 0 Bytes Sent : 564 Bytes Received: 61 Thuput(bytes/min): 347 Two brief messages were sent during the above mentioned "QSO". Watching the complex bandwidth negociations, acks, and other interactions involved makes you appreciate just how complex a task the WINMOR developers have. It will be fun conducting further tests. When the testing is over and the performance is improved, what will we have? It will be an email client that allows you to use HF to connect to a mailbox and send messages . I am not sure if they will maintain the present peer-to-peer messages exchange capability, I hope so because it can be quite useful. No expensive PACTOR TNC will be needed By the way, of the 50 or so stations I saw testing (many using the K3UK Sked page) "listen first" was a clear concept that was advocated . Yes, the busy detect worked! A screenshot can be seen at http://www.obriensweb.com/rms7.jpg This shows the three RMS Express windows with the K3UK Sked Page in the background. The WINMOR modem is connected to VE2FXL and a message is being sent. Andy K3UK
