FD Packet

[David Robbins]

Well, another Field Day has come and gone.  And again I will put forth 
my observations about using packet on fd.  

Field Day is supposed to be an emergency preparedness exercise.  Many
clubs spend long hours planning and setting up in the field using emergency
generators, batteries, and other non-commercial sources of power.  Others
put their home stations on emergency power and test out their capabilities 
that way.  This is great and as it should be.  Field Day has also been a great
way to use some of the more exotic modes that many hams don't get to see
all the time.  This is also good since most of these are done using the same
emergency type setups.  Also the most common form of amateur 
communications is banned, the use of repeaters.  This is also good since
many repeaters would probably be unavailable in a major disaster.

One mode has escaped this emergency preparedness exercise though, 
Packet Radio.  During FD weekend on the east coast at least the packet 
networks were choked with stations calling cq and making contacts.  All
using commercially powered digipeaters, net/rom type nodes, and Packet
Cluster nodes.  While this may be great fun for some, and a pain for others,
the main point is that it does not fit the rest of the weekend's theme.  That
of making use of emergency powered stations.

My suggestion for next year is that use of commercially powered packet
digipeaters, nodes, and clusters be banned for field day contacts.  Note, 
this does not mean banning packet from Field Day, just changing the
strategy to bring it more in line with the rest of the operations for that
weekend.  The result of this I would hope would be that FD stations that
set up packet would have to plan new emergency networks that did not use
the established nodes that would not be available during an emergency.
It would also find out which nodes or digis had emergency power that
could run them for 24hrs.  Essentially packet operation would change in
that you would have to check that each station along your connect path
was on emergency power.  This would be much more like an emergency
situation where you did not know who was left on the air, you would have
to try one hop at a time to figure out where you could get.  It would also
eliminate those very un-emergency type of operations like chat nodes and
PacketCluster DX spots for making contacts.

I sent the above comments to KR1R at the ARRL Contest Branch, he 
forwarded to the CAC.  I didn't realize they were the cognizant committee
for that purpose, but if Billy says so I'll take his word on it.  If you
agree with this suggestion or have your own ideas now is the time to 
send them it so there is time to get something in the works for next year.

73, Dave

-- 
ky1h at berkshire.net   or   robbins at berkshire.net
http://www.berkshire.net/~robbins/ky1h.html


>From barry at w2up.wells.com (Barry Kutner)  Mon Jun 24 22:35:52 1996
From: barry at w2up.wells.com (Barry Kutner) (Barry Kutner)
Date: Mon, 24 Jun 96 21:35:52 GMT
Subject: cw forever?
Message-ID: <Heo2PD1w165w at w2up.wells.com>

k6ll at juno.com (David O. Hachadorian) writes:

> 
> I would like to hear from contesters with digital mode and cw experience
> regarding their thoughts on how cw, rtty, and state of the art digital
> modes compare for contest-style weak signal work.
> 
> Dave, K6LL

Dave - As a CW and Digital contester, I can tell you the following:
99 44/100 percent of all digital contesting takes place in good ol
Baudot/RTTY mode. The newer burst modes such as Clover and Pactor, while 
having good error-correction and weak signal reception, fall apart in 
condx when there is more than one signal calling at once. There is (was) 
an AMTOR contest, but I believe it died. Also, CQs are called in FEC 
mode, which is a one-way xmsn much like Baudot. Only after the FEC call 
is decoded, does one then switch to the ARQ (error-correcting) burst 
mode. This is a slow process, analogous to your telephone modem going 
thru its handshaking process.
For quick exchanges, as done in a contest, Baudot/RTTY wins hands down
for speed. 73 Barry

--

Barry N. Kutner, W2UP       Internet: barry at w2up.wells.com
Newtown, PA                 Packet Radio: W2UP @ WB3JOE.#EPA.PA.USA.NA
                            Packet Cluster: W2UP >WB2R (FRC)
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