[Alexandria Radio Club Reflector] FW: New modes on VOA Radiogram, 26-27 Oct 2013

[Don Lewis (KI4D)]

The VOA Radiogram Program will be featuring two new fast HF digital modes this weekend, MFSK64L and MFSK128L.  See the complete details in Kim's (KD9XB) email note below.  As you may know, Kim frequently checks in to our Alexandria Radio Club weekly net.  It could be quite interesting  to check out the reliability of the latest HF fast digital modes in action this weekend, although those of us who are supporting the 38th Marine Corps Marathon this weekend will likely miss some of the broadcasts.   

 

Don, KI4D

 

The VOA Radiogram transmission schedule is as follows:


(all days and times UTC)
Sat 1600-1630 17860 kHz
Sun 0230-0300 5745 kHz
Sun 1300-1330 6095 kHz
Sun 1930-2000 15670 kHz



 

From: VOA Radiogram [mailto:radiogram at voanews.com] 
Sent: Thursday, October 24, 2013 11:57 AM
To: VOA Radiogram
Subject: New modes on VOA Radiogram, 26-27 Oct 2013

 

Hello friends,

 

In the past few weeks, we have included the MFSK64 and MFSK128 modes in VOA Radiogram. These fast modes are useful for sending large amounts of information, including html coding. But they are often prone to errors if shortwave reception conditions are less than ideal.

 

To address that problem, the Fldigi development team has created long interleave versions of the two modes: MFSK64L and MFSK128L. They include a "6.25 second interleaver for very robust HF reception."  The new MFSK64L and MFSK128L modes are available in the latest "alpha" version of Fldigi, 3.21.76AR, available from http://www.w1hkj.com/alpha/fldigi/v3.21/

 

During VOA Radiogram for the weekend of 26-27 October 2013, we will transmit the same VOA news story in the MFSK64 "short," then in MFSK64L. After that, we will do the same comparison with MFSK128 and MFSK128L.

 

When you are the w1hkj.com website <http://www.w1hkj.com/download.html> , please also download the latest version of Flmsg: 1.1.33. In the past, diacritics and non-Latin alphabets would not display correctly after an Flmsg item was received, because Flmsg used a different character set. Flmsg 1.1.33 uses the UTF-8 character set, same as used for international language alphabets. Because of this, the VOA Spanish news item at the end of the show, after the Flmsg item, should display the correct diacritics.

 

Here is the lineup of  modes for VOA Radiogram, number 30, 26-27 October 2013:

 

3:17  MFSK16: Program preview

7:02  MFSK16/32/64/128: Image in each mode

:45  MFSK32: Introduction to MFSK64L and 128L

1:43  MFSK64: VOA News re flying cars 

2:00  MFSK64L*: Same VOA News story

2:16  MFSK32 image: Flying car in flight

1:20  MFSK128: VOA News re oldest comet strike

1:36  MFSK128L*: Same VOA News story

2:12  MFSK32/Flmsg**: News from kimandrewelliott.com

2:26  MFSK32: VOA News in Spanish re Blackberry

:33  MFSK32: Closing announcements   

 

*Requires Fldigi 3.21.76AR. Note that text will not display until a few seconds after the tones are heard. 

 

**Use Flmsg 1.1.33 to ensure that the accents appear correctly on the VOA Spanish news item that follows. To make Flmsg work with Fldigi, in Fldigi: Configure > Misc > NBEMS -- Under reception of flmsg files, check both boxes, and under that indicate where your flmsg.exe file (1.1.33) is located.

 

Please send your reception reports to radiogram at voanews.com. Audio samples and screenshots are also appreciated.

 

Thanks to those of you who sent emails after last weekend's program. I hope to have those answered by this weekend.

 

Kim

 

Kim Andrew Elliott

Producer and Presenter

 

VOA Radiogram

radiogram at voanews.com

http://voaradiogram.net

Twitter: @voaradiogram