[Lowfer] WSPR QSO Mode

[JD]

>>> Try WSJT7.. It has a WSPR QSO mode..in which you can input various 
>>> information to be transmitted.

Yes, I've looked into it a bit and certainly agree that it's more like what 
I think of as "real" radio communication... although I might quibble 
slightly about the term "WSPR QSO mode" as the "PR" in WSPR is propagation 
reporting, an activity essentially contrary to QSOs.

Probably the thing I have found most frustrating about WSPR is that it seems 
to have become the end-all in a lot of people's thinking.  It's the right 
tool for one basically one purpose, spotting; and secondarily for beaconing. 
Beyond that narrow scope, it's more confining than if the Founding Fathers 
had tried putting together the Constitution via Twitter!

If you go beyond the "PR" protocol and dig into the real modulation scheme, 
you have the various (and less restrictive) flavors of JT available.  If 
these versions start getting used more for beaconing and QSOs, I could 
probably get more enthused.

Now, I do have one other underlying problem with WSPR.  Bob and I had been 
discussing the undesirability of having to lie to the software to make it do 
what you need, but to a certain extent I say "serves it right, because it 
lies to us all the time."  People like to marvel at how many astonishing dB 
"below noise" WSPR reports decoding signals at...but it's an equivocation at 
best, and a pervarication at worst.  Apples to oranges--you decode a 6 Hz 
wide signal in WSPR 2, but you measure the noise in a 2.4 kHz bandwidth. 
That's a bogus 26 dB of "noise" right there.  Take that out, and the SNR 
numbers don't look nearly so impressive.  :)