Good points Sandy, but you know there are a lot of guys with old Type 47 and 33 mechanical printers out there who enjoy firing them up and hearing them rattle the windows of the shack pounding out TTY on paper by the hour. As far as I know, not a one of them will do PSK or any other TOR mode.
While many Hams keep their eyes squarely on the future, many look back to the past. Shoot, there are even many Hams who build and operate vacuum tube gear and some who have yet to utter a single word on 'phone using anything but AM phone! <G> I agree that we should conserve spectrum as a matter of good stewardship of the resource but out here in the west, at least, we have lots and lots of KHz on the HF bands that are unoccupied except, perhaps, during a contest. If the day ever comes that we do find ourselves unable to squeeze in sideways on a band, perhaps we'll need to re-think the use of some wider bandwidth modes, just like "King Spark" was outlawed for just that reason about 75 years ago. Ron AC7AC -----Original Message----- In my humble opinion, I would say PSK, generally, has it "all over" RTTY. Communication can be maintained with very marginal signals, and very nearby signals (unless they are "dirty" or overpowering the receiver's AGC system). I have used a lot of RTTY systems over the years and they require MORE bandwidth, more power for effective communication (generally), and subject nearby signals more interference (generally). The largest "bug" I have found in the PSK system is that it is "mangled" by propagation phase shifts caused by auroral disturbances even though audibly, the signal sounds "OK". I consider this acceptable as it (PSK31) seems to "get through" much more efficiently than RTTY with less power. Speed in this case not a factor in keyboard to keyboard QSO's. I can see no sense in using MORE bandwidth than a PSK31 signal to convey normal QSO information. Other modes capable of data and image communication in addition to normal keyboard QSO's wind up being gross "overkill" and use spectrum space a lot more inefficiently. Spectrum space for CW, digital modes is "shrinking" from demands made for voice and wide data modes. Therefore it would behoove us to contrate our efforts on the narrowest digital mode that will give satisfactory communication in these days of decreasing spectrum space. An amazing amount of use is being made of just a 3-5 Khz. "sub band" for PSK operations on most bands from 80-10 meters. It amazes me why this mode isn't replacing RTTY, and remains a popular FSK mode. It would be like comparing effectiveness of SSB voice mode to the older AM voice mode. I can't see people changing over to AM, even as a "fad", over SSB operations. It's starkly obvious which is generally superior! My "two pennies" worth on this thread. 73, Sandy W5TVW _______________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Post to: Elecraft@mailman.qth.net You must be a subscriber to post to the list. Subscriber Info (Addr. Change, sub, unsub etc.): http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/subscribers.htm Elecraft web page: http://www.elecraft.com
