Suppressed Report Becomes Public

Many times near 14109.5 KHz. (PIII) and 14075 kHz when I operate PACTOR myself! The problem I normally experience is not from the human control operator, but from the deaf automated operator. I am sure the system works very well, but it is unsuited for unattended operation.

73,

Mark N5RFX

 

Let me "ditto" all of Skips comments. You are the one that obviously have not tried to run some of the psk modes in the part of the bands where winlink has taken over.

I don't know what you have for a 40 meter antenna, but I can assure you that there are tons of qso's going on from 5:00 pm central till late at night on the low end of 40 meters. It is hard to find space between the SSB, Shortwave, and ham qso's to find a spot. 80 meters during the summer is a different animal. 10 over S9 noise makes it difficult most nights to find someone you can copy and most hams don't even try.

I have listed below all the frequencies (by band, I skipped 15 m) that winlink PMBO's in the US use as of the winlink2000 web site this morning.

3590.9 3620.9 3621.2 3621.9 3622.4 3626.9 3629.9 3631.9 3641.9

spread at # 3 Khz (Pactor III) = 27 khz
current spread = 51 khz



7065.9 7066.9 7067.9 7068.9 7069.9 7070.9 7071.9 7072.9 7073.9
7074.9 7075.9 7076.9 7101.2

spread at # 3 Khz (Pactor III) = 39 khz
current spread = 36 khz


10122.9 10123.9 10125.9 10126.9 10127.9 10132.9 10133.9
10136.9 10139.5 10140.4 10141.2 10142.7 10143.4 10143.7
10143.7 10145.2 10145.7 10146.2

spread at # 3 Khz (Pactor III) = 54 khz
current spread = 23 khz


14064.4 14064.9 14066.4 14066.9 14067.9 14068.9 14069.0
14069.4 14069.9 14072.9 14073.9 14075.4 14075.9 14076.9
14078.9 14094.9 14096.0 14096.2 14098.7 14101.7 14102.7
14104.2 14106.7 14109.2 14109.9 14110.0 14112.4 14117.9

spread at # 3 Khz (Pactor III) = 84 khz
current spread = 54 khz


18075.4 18098.9 18100.9 18101.9 18102.9 18103.9 18104.9
18106.2 18106.7 18107.9 18108.7

spread at # 3 Khz (Pactor III) = 24 khz
current spread = 29 khz

For example, you'll notice that winlink PMBO's are scattered throughout 54 khz of the 20 meter band today. At 3 khz, which several of the station use today, they would be spread out over 84 khz MINIMUM!!! This is almost 25% of the band for what you say is less than 1% of hams who use it.

Also, please let everyone here know if you have ever, ever just started up a winlink session with out listening to see if there was a cw, psk, or some other kind of qso taking place within the passband you would be using.

Even if you always, always listen to the frequency first, you are in the minority. This is why there is such a concern with interference. Hey, I have heard winlink stations start transmission and interfere with other winlink stations. I know they couldn't have listened to the frequency first. They just chose the station and frequency and fired up!

You also have to understand that on the higher bands especially, two things rule. Propagation and the fact that most hams are in the working class and the bands are occupied heaviest only after work, i.e. in the evenings. Consequently, the bands are dead for a large part of the day. The majority of hams use the bands at the same time.

I for one am going to keep the list of stations on the winlink200 0web pages and their frequencies. This is available at winlink.org/stations.htm. In my opinion, if I am interfered with the PMBO station is just as much as fault as the station that starts the connection. In no other mode would the first station to transmit over me be any more or less guilty of interference than all responding stations that also interfere with my ongoing contact. I consider both the airmail station and the PMBO both guilty of intentional interference and reportable to the FCC. I would encourage everyone to do the same.

It seems to me the network winlink is developing is what we called space division switching in the telephone company. That is separate connections in space for each conversation. You needed a separate set of wires (in this case frequencies) from one end to the other for each conversation. Computer networks like token ring and ethernet changed this.

Why can't winlink develop the same type of network, say using tokens to handle many stations on one frequency. It would simplify their network and reduce the need for additional frequencies. You could probably run five to ten PMBO's on one frequency. The PMBO's could pass the token over the internet to other PMBO's who would then pass it to airmail stations who could only transmit when they have the token. Short intervals could be left after each transmission for additional stations to generate a "notify" transmission to any given PMBO and who would eventually be recognized with a "token delivery" message. You could run a pretty high occupancy rate on just a few frequencies with this method.

It just seems to me a very, very, very, very, small group of hams are really overdoing their use of the limited frequencies we have. There should be a way they could reduce their frequency need to a more reasonable value.

Jim
WA0LYK

 

"Why can't winlink develop the same type of network, say using tokens to handle many stations on one frequency. It would simplify their network and reduce the need for additional frequencies. "

I have never understood why amateur protocols have not made more use of token passing networks. 15 years ago, IBM's token ring network was running 16mb over the same media ethernet was struggling to do 10mb over. It is ideally suited for a media where you have a few stations and need to handle a high density of traffic. It is a very graceful way to handle a network. Admittedly, it does have a higher programming overhead.

If the Winlink people really want to do some experimenting and move the technical boundaries forward for ham radio, I have some suggestions:
1. redesign pactor and winlink to use token passing in order to allow multiplexed stations on one channel. You can still run data packet error correction on a station-to-station basis so you will get the almost error-free piece of pactor.
2. redesign pactor (really winlink) to actually monitor the data carrier detect signals the tnc's can produce rather than just putting the tnc in pactor phasing mode and listening for another pactor signal.

I will have to do some thinking about how the token routine would work with propagation effects - that could be problematic since a token could get lost down a propagation chain but I suspect there are ways around that. You don't have to pass tokens around a ring, you can also pass them from a hub around the spokes of a star.

Either or both of these would provide much, much needed improvements and would make it much easier to live with pactor.

I also have a question to ask about digital voice. From some of the reading I have done, it is not apparent that the acquisition times will be conducive to using vox as we do with SSB. Will a move to digital voice put us back in the environment of the old AM days with leather-lunged rhetoric wells tying up roundtables for the better part of an hour while everyone else waits? Or is this just another area that will be improved upon?

tim ab0wr

 

We are NOT arguing the merits of Winlink as a traffic handling medium, or a mode. Most of us here agree that it is possibly one of the best methods available for long distance, high volume, record traffic.

What we are trying to discuss is the rather huge defects in its present method of implementation: unattended robot stations, most of which are being used solely for the convenience of less that 1% of the amateur population.

 

Skip, KH6TY,

Good comments, all.  Thanks.

". . .then why is Winlink trying to get unlimited access to ALL frequencies except a tiny portion for CW on each band?"


This will never happen, so I don't think it is a problem.

"Wrong! I work mostly PSK63 and PSK31, and a little CW. On the average, I am interferred with by a Winlink "robot" six or more times a day, depending on how long I am operating, and the frequency I happen to pick. If I accidentally pick a Winlink-advertised PMBO frequency in the early evening, I will be unable to complete a 5-minute QSO without a robot breaking it up."


This sounds like a serious problem.  Something should be done about it.  By the way, interference works both ways.  Last year, when I was using Winlink regularly, I had conections brokes several times by RTTY stations as well as by other Winlink users.

I also experienced the same sort of QRM while using CW and SSB.  There are good guys and bad guys in all modes.

Just curious - - since you are a Winlink user you know the frequencies used by PMBO stations.  How come you're doing PSK on a frequency where you know there is a strong possibility of being interefered with?  I am asking out of ignorance since I have limited experience with PSK - does PSK have an assigned sub-band (similar to what you want for Winlink)?  If so, I agree that Winlink has no business being there.

"So, do like I did, and stay awake for a 24-hour period, monitoring traffic on three Winlink frequencies, using three receivers, and then come back and tell everyone your experience and why you think Winlink must have more than 3.8% of the HF ham spectrum for their use when they cannot, and are unable, to share a frequency and let the first one on use it."

No thanks.  I'm too old for that sort of stuff.  I'll take your word for it.

There is, obviously, a problem here, perhaps many problems to be solved before things settle down.

I will watch with great interest as those more capable than myself work them out.

73,  Dick,  W6BKY

 

Jim, WA0LYK,

 

Dick, first of all, nobody "owns" a frequency, not even Winlink.

Second, if a station that is not aware it is a Winlink frequency calls CQ, and I answer it, and it turns out to be a Winlink frequency, we will get interrupted, almost always.  The frequency choice was his, not mine, and I even lost a rare DX station last year because a Pactor came on the frequency and took it over. :-(

PSK31 and PSK63 are very narrow so one Pactor station can cover up five PSK31 stations. It is just not possible to block out all Winlink frequencies, and the FCC says we should not have to do that anyway.

RTTY does not work where Winlink works, so that RTTY QRM may have been during a contest, where RTTY may be everywhere for a short time.

The point is that QRM by Pactors to others is an order of maginitue greater than the other way around. Normal levels of QRM are a given on the crowded ham bands, but not the level that currently exists and is growing by Pactor mailboxes to others.

There are no "assigned" frequencies for PSK31 and PSK63, but for example, all activity on PSK31 on 20m is from 14070 to 14072.5, and PSK63 from 14072.5 to 14075, by historical convention, and there are some Winlink frequencies in that area.

You can try something - just arrange a RTTY sked with someone on a published Winlink frequency in the evening and see what happens....

73, Skip
KH6TY

 

Dick,

Winlink wants to scatter randomly all over the bands, including SSB phone - that is why they wrote the proposed petition for the ARRL to reflect that fact and then announced to their users that one of the purposes of the proposed petition to was to make more space available for Winlink-type activites. What do you guess is in the works - of course, more Winlink Pactor robots, and more QRM!

In fact, the FCC has already set aside 3.8% of all the ham frequencies as the Part 97.221(b) sub-bands FCC Report and Order , which is more than enough space for Winlink activities, but they refuse to go there, preferring to remain scattered all over the bands. When Winlink started many years ago, HF Packet was active in those sub-bands, but HF Packet activity is way down now, so those sub-bands are now available.

3.8% of all the ham radio space is already available for unattended operations, and Winlink represents less than 1% of all FCC-licensed hams, but refuses to help out by confining operations there, when they have FOUR times the space they deserve in proportion to their numbers already available!

If Winlink just moved operations to those sub-bands, all the QRM problems from Pactor stations would immediately go away.

There is no reason they should not just do that to help out in sharing the bands with everyone else, but that is apparently not their ilk!  

73, Skip KH6TY

 

Skip, KH6TY

Some of my comments seem to be getting lost in cyber space. Anyway, In one of your responses to one of my previous comments, you say . . .

 

Dick W6KBY,

Thanks for your good comments. Fyi, your comment:

In the US there are 22 stations monitoring 28 frequencies on 20 meters. At 3 Khz per station this would take up 84 Khz of a band that is only 350 khz (or 24%). At a spacing of 4 Khz they would take up 112 KHz (32%). The talk is that they want to expand the number of frequencies/stations even more. Just doesn't sound reasonable to most of us.

The fact that they don't operate 24/7 isn't really the problem. As you pointed out, if you start a qso on an open frequency that happens to be on or close to a winlink frequency you have a good chance of being inteferred with.

Jim
WA0LYK

 

And after this massive thread worried about Pactor, it seems that the FCC will go ahead with BPL.

They recognize the interference problems, but the economy is more important.

Right, BPL is a the major factor in the economy?

Well, at least we have the internet to talk about the old days, before HF was killed by some farmer checking out porno sites on the internet through his BPL connection.

Wow. Progress moves on.

W6NJ

 

K7RVS Robert H. Batcheller
I think that Automated repeaters that are not under direct human activation, or would have a form of modulation that would have wide frequency jumping such as spread spectrum should be assigned to a segment of each amateur band so that this type of communication will not block or interference to normal voice, data, code, and repeater operation.