Dear Chris,
Re: your successful reception of WOLF with large frequency offsets, this is
quite interesting, since normally the mode is not very tolerant of errors in
the frequency settings. Next time (if there is one...) it would be
interesting to see what the decoder output looks like when you do this.
In its present experimental form, WOLF is certainly not very easy to set up.
Some brave souls have completed 2-way QSOs, but it has to be said that as a
2-way communications mode it is not yet fully developed either. Much of the
difficulty is due to shortcomings of the hardware being used to transmit and
receive it, especially sound cards. You have to remember that sound cards
are really designed to generate sound effects to accompany the escapades of
Sonic the Hedgehog, or for listening to your favorite illegal Drum 'n' Bass
downloads, neither of which need great precision in frequency, so getting
them to work for sophisticated communications DSP is bound to be fiddly
sometimes.
It is certainly true that a 2-way QSO between M0BMU and G4AYT would be much
easier using CW, or PSK31, or any of several quite well developed modes that
are available. But if you are trying to work DX stations on LF or MF, most
of the time you cannot hear their signals at all, nor they yours, so
contacts in CW are impossible. But modes like WSPR, QRSS and perhaps WOLF
can function with much lower signal levels and make these QSOs possible, if
not as easy and convenient as one might like.
Cheers, Jim Moritz
73 de M0BMU
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