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Message-ID: <3.0.1.16.20010126104930.2c07643c@mail.cc.kuleuven.ac.be>
Date: Fri, 26 Jan 2001 10:49:30
To: rsgb_lf_group@blacksheep.org
From: "Rik Strobbe" <rik.strobbe@fys.kuleuven.ac.be>
Subject: LF: VA3LK seen in ON
In-reply-to: <007201c08735$5121f410$0a00a8c0@ThreeLakes.ca>
References: <4.1.20010125141716.017e5680@pop.tiscalinet.it>
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Hi Larry,

I had a look for you this morning and saw a interrupted trace popping up
just over the noisefloor. QRN was bad, but I could make a VA out of it
(with some imagination).
I'm pretty sure to have seen your signal and will continue monitoring for
the next days. If condx go up a bit and QRN down a bit I should be able to
get a clear copy.

More general : it seems that it is possible to cross the pond with stations
running less than 1W ERP (believe that BMU and AQC are abt 400-500mW) but
it needs rather long dotlengths (1 minute). So we want to take the next
step to 2-way communication we might need a more 'time efficient' mode than
straight morse code. 
DFCW is about 3 times faster but it needs 2 frequencies, a shift of 0.1Hz
would be sufficient. More complicated 'coding' using multiple frequencies
could even speed up things more, using 4 frequencies we could code 64
characters in 3 'dots'.
Based on the experience that a 'very basic' QRSS QSO takes about 20 minutes
at 3 sec. dotlength this would mean over 6 hours at 1 minute dotlength.
With DFCW this could be reduced to about 2 hours, seems acceptable to me.
Advantage of DFCW over more complicated codes is that it is 'readable' on
screen if you know morse code.

73, Rik