[Elecraft] Digimodes what am I missing?

[Walter Underwood]

KSM is staffed by volunteers. I respect their skill and dedication, but professionals are paid. I expect these operators are retired professionals or former professionals. Morse is no longer a career path. Even the military has dropped Morse interception as a recognized skill.

On the other hand, an architectural blacksmith can make a good living.

Power supplies are necessary, but not interesting. That is a solved problem. On the other hand, there is some cool stuff happening in power transmission, like the DC projects in Germany.

And responding to another message, ARQ is error-detecting, not error-correcting, but if you want to include that, then Morse was obsoleted as the state of the art in the 1950's rather than the 1960's.

One of the purposes of the amateur service is "advancing skills in both the communication and technical phases of the art." I'm interested in advancing the technical stuff.

wunder
K6WRU

On Mar 22, 2014, at 5:18 PM, Phil Kane <k2asp at kanafi.org> wrote:

> On 3/21/2014 8:39 AM, Walter Underwood wrote:
> 
>> CW is neat as a hobby technology, but commercially, it is less
>> relevant than blacksmithing. There are quite a few professional
>> blacksmiths, but no professional CW operators.
> 
> Oh??  See:  www.radiomarine.org.   Station KSM is banging away while I
> sit here and type.  It is a Public Coast Station open to commercial
> marine traffic manned by professional CW operators.  Some of them even
> have ham licenses!
> 
>> when I was studying EE at Rice, analog modes were about as interesting as power supplies.
> 
> What do you think makes those "digital gadgets" run?  Air?  And where
> does it comes from?  The wall?
> 
> My consulting engineering firm not only designs the microwave and data
> transport systems for public safety communication of our clients,  but
> also the power systems necessary to keep them running in 24/7 service.
> 
> It doesn't happen by magic.
> 
> 73 de K2ASP - Phil Kane (P.E.)
> T2-00000208  (one of the last 10 issued)
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--
Walter Underwood
wunder at wunderwood.org