Rambling stuff…
Some of the content from the previous site has been lost – at least for the near term. I’m going to be digging around to see if I can recover some of the interesting posts concerning audio adjustments.
In the meantime, I’ve reconstructed the Sound and Projection schedules.
After fighting with Drupal 8 for a couple of month, on shared-hosting, I’ve decided to take a different direction: WordPress. I’ve never been super-religious about using Drupal – it was merely the system I started with many years ago, and I’d grown accustomed to its operation.
However, the latest implementations require Composer and Drush, which are tools that don’t play well with my shared-hosting provider. I’ve been trying to make it work for a while, and I’ve finally thrown-in the towel.
I’m now beginning to rebuild using WordPress. I’m still on the same shared-hosting, but WordPress is much easier to install and I’m sure that I’ll grow to enjoy it, just as I have Drupal.
There are a growing number of encoding protocols available to be used with WinLink on HF.
WINMOR has been a long-time protocol with basic error correction and a simple implementation. WINMOR has been superseded by several other protocols. In fact, WINMOR is expected to be retired from WinLink in the near future. The newer protocols are faster, and more robust.
ARDOP (Amateur Radio Digital Open Protocol) has eclipsed WINMOR as the best open-source protocol available. Some folks prefer ARDOP, due to its open-source nature. ARDOP is definitely faster and more robust than WINMOR.
VARA is a newer, semi-open protocol. Some operators are irritated with the author’s restrictions on client speeds on unlicensed installations. The speeds are truly limited – but they maintain the robust nature of the protocol. The licensed versions approach the speeds of hardware-based PACTOR systems.
My simple field tests indicated that VARA was the superior protocol – even on my six-year-old laptop. The old laptop has no problem keeping up with the transmissions through my Kenwood TS-570s transceiver. While I haven’t seen meteoric transmission speeds, I’ve seen 1,000 bps – which seems pretty quick for a software-based protocol over HF.
by