[Lowfer] 185.300 Watering Hole

[JD]

>>> It's interesting to me that again, the graphic portion is a better form 
>>> of ID than the solid line QRSS. I wonder if that would still be the case 
>>> if the graphic were changed from WM to a less familiar icon.

That's a good question. There's a lot to be said for the simplicity of "WM."

I, too, am intrigued that the graphic portion works better than the FSK. 
The sloping lines are not as efficient for Argo's FFT routine to decode, as 
the carrier spends less time in each frequency bin. But on the other hand, 
the straight-line portions tend to get broken up into smaller elements 
because of noise bursts and QSB, so they are harder to decipher...especially 
when the letters are separated by the graphic and the eye doesn't have a 
chance to integrate the whole ID at once.

I note that when signals on 1750 m underwent the transition to daytime 
groundwave this morning, I lost the graphic portion entirely.  I can still 
see two broken lines where the flat portions of the FSK are, but nothing of 
the graphic intervals between. It's sometimes evident that there are two 
dashes, but it's not always clear whether there's a dot in front of one of 
them. Other times, the dashes are broken up enough to look like dots 
themselves.

Perhaps if the FSK W and M were grouped together between the graphic ones, 
the FSK might be more nearly readable.

73
John