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HF found useful

Discussion in 'General Announcements' started by W1CTC, Aug 8, 2017.

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  1. WR2E

    WR2E XML Subscriber QRZ Page

    OMG! That giant soldier is stomping out that entire town! :eek:

    And those linemen on the poles in the middle of a firestorm...
     
  2. KM4DYX

    KM4DYX Ham Member QRZ Page

    Those who came before us were giants, didn't you know that?
     
    WR2E likes this.
  3. WA4ILH

    WA4ILH Subscriber QRZ Page

    Next, maybe the Navy will discover the unheard of MF frequencies for when HF goes out. I can recall the RMs on my ship spending 4 hour watches on MF (CW of course) using a WRT-1. (very reliable radio by the way.)
    Tom WA4ILH
     
  4. K7KBN

    K7KBN Ham Member QRZ Page

    We never had to bring up an MF circuit - kept everything within the range of the WRT-2. That and the ol' R-390. 1963-1966 wasn't prime time for propagation, but we were always in control.

    Well, November 23, 1963 (November 22, stateside) saw not a few RMs watching the incoming news on the RTTY with looks on our faces showing less control than usual...
     
  5. WA4ILH

    WA4ILH Subscriber QRZ Page

    Of course, we always had to keep a watch up on 500 KHz but I'm pretty sure we also had an MF circuit up to NAVCOMSTA Londendarry Northern Ireland when we wer in the Med.
    We also coppied the fleet broadcast on LF. Soewhere around 150 KHz ??? It always amazed me how far we could copy the LF broadcast over a water path. When we left Norfolk, we could copy the LF broacast from NAVCOMSTA Norfolk (NAM) all the way across till we entered the Med. Of course, NAM was running about 10 KW on LF. My cruiser, The USS Columbus had 3 WRT-1s and and old WRT-2 which was down half the time. We had 8 URC-32A for HF.
    Tom WA4ILH
     
  6. K6CLS

    K6CLS Ham Member QRZ Page

    That's incestuous. Ha ha
    .
     
    W4KJG likes this.
  7. K6CLS

    K6CLS Ham Member QRZ Page

    Hi, please continue to keep a watch, look for K6YVM the SS Red Oak Victory, also KYVM on commercial frequencies, and also KPH!
     
  8. K6CLS

    K6CLS Ham Member QRZ Page

    Firefox edit fail sorry folks
     
  9. AC0GT

    AC0GT Ham Member QRZ Page

    I don't see the irony. They've just successfully tested a high frequency radio system capable of digital communications. What can MARS offer now that they have this?

    On top of their HF systems they have access to whatever the Army and Air Force has (including their MARS program), and whatever the Coast Guard and civilian agencies have.

    I've seen the specifications on these systems, or perhaps something similar, and they can take a lot of abuse and still get through. MARS offers little for them now. Considering my conversation with some MARS people at a hamfest so long ago I suspect that MARS was becoming more trouble than it was worth long before it was officially disbanded.
     
  10. N2SUB

    N2SUB Premium Subscriber QRZ Page

    That was a little Jersey sarcasm. Sorry, it's my native tongue and sometimes it doesn't translate well.

    Funny you mention that. Back in the early 90's when I was fully involved in NAVMARCORP MARS in NJ/DE, we in conjunction with military personnel deployed a world-wide digital system that was fully automated. The NJ/DE switch consisted of a 286 computer without Windows (the switching program was DOS based) and a 2 meter and HF rig, and 2 TNCs. The HF rig acted as a listener and it listened on specific frequencies for an AMTOR, PACTOR or PACKET signal. If it got a lock on the other signal, it would receive the message, read the routing indicators and determine whether it needed to be relayed via HF or VHF. Then it would resend on the appropriate band to the appropriate station. We were sending messages to packet inboxes all over the world in a matter of minutes instead of hours or days completely unattended. Only NAVMARCORP had a system like that at the time.

    When I moved South I resigned from MARS until a few years ago. When I rejoined I discovered that the system was completely gone. So was NAVMARCORP MARS for that matter. ARMY MARS has a proprietary digital mode to pass between stations manually, but there is no automatic way to pass traffic without using a net. The ARMY main purpose is to pass encrypted traffic via radio in the event of a Denial Of Service attack on our internet system. The NAVY had a backup email system in the 90s, they just didn't know it because email hadn't become a primary means of communication yet. But, they shut it down. So, maybe there's a little bit of irony after all. It was a great experience because it helped me in my IT career as we actually built the internet using many of the same principles. If they kept the system around and updated the modes and encrypted the messages, we would really have something. :)
     
    Last edited: Aug 11, 2017
  11. AC0GT

    AC0GT Ham Member QRZ Page

    Ah, I see now. It's so hard to tell when sarcasm is intended. I enjoyed your post regardless. Thanks.

    I thought of joining MARS long ago but when looking up how it worked on the internet I found a lot of pages not updated in ages, a lot of dead links, just general indications of decay. There was also the issue of getting my equipment up to spec, I'd have to modify my gear to operate out of the amateur bands, and I wasn't comfortable with that, or pay someone to do that for me, I wasn't comfortable with that either. The little fight on whether or not CW would be allowed on MARS going on at the time didn't help. I'm a bit surprised to find Army and Air Force MARS still active.

    Oh, and I didn't mean to imply that digital on HF is new. What's new is the speeds that they are capable of sending now. I didn't see a mention of what the speed of the data is now, only an implication that it is fast enough for much more than it was in the past.
     
    N2SUB likes this.
  12. KM4DYX

    KM4DYX Ham Member QRZ Page

    Harris is claiming up to 120 kbps over a 24 kHz channel; I'd like to see that in action.
     
  13. WA4ILH

    WA4ILH Subscriber QRZ Page

    did you mean 2.4 KHz (two point four) channel?
    Tom WA4ILH
     
  14. KM4DYX

    KM4DYX Ham Member QRZ Page

  15. W9FTV

    W9FTV Ham Member QRZ Page

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