Posts Tagged ‘ROS’

ROS developer issues G4ILO with an ultimatum

I visited the ROS Digital Modem Group on Yahoo! and found the following message:

ROS ULTIMATUM

For Julian, G4ILO,
Has a period of 24 hours to correct the news about the legality of ROS in your blog or it will be illegal to use it yourself. Am I making myself clear enough.

Several hours ago I posted about the news that the FCC had reversed its decision regarding the legality of the use of ROS in the US. Is that not good enough for him?

A week ago, when I posted that ROS was illegal in the US, that was what the FCC believed and what I wrote was true at the time. I am not in the Soviet Union and I am not rewriting history to suit someone else’s convenience. Moreover, if someone has an issue with me or anything I write, would not the correct way to proceed be to send me an email, not issue an ultimatum in a public forum that I may or may not read?

I am so angry I can barely type.

Update: Jose has now seen my post of this morning and issued an apology. He wrote:

Sorry, i did not see the new post.

I apologize and I hope you put yourself in my place and understand my indignation.

I don’t wish to have any ill-feeling so I have accepted his apology. But I am still pretty angry and upset about the manner in which he chose to express his indignation. Even if I hadn’t yet written about the changed ruling, an email would have been all that was needed to obtain my assurance that I would as soon as I could.

I will not be using the ROS digital mode any more.

ROS digital mode now legal in USA

José Alberto Nieto Ros, the developer of the new ROS digital mode, has submitted the technical specification of the mode to the FCC, as a result of which they conclude that ROS can not be viewed as Spread Spectrum and would be encompassed within the section 97.309 (RTTY and data emissions codes).

Now, all that needs to be resolved is the issue of where to use it without causing complaints from users of existing nets and other modes. Anyone with experience of getting quarts into pint pots please apply now.

Hot news: ROS digital mode illegal in USA

Hot from the K3UK Sked page. “Breaking news from ARRL. They concur that ROS is a spread spectrum mode and as such is not allowed by the FCC on bands below 222 MHz.”

I had just been giving ROS another try with my K3 and 40W this time, and managed to complete contacts on 20m with Alabama and Washington State. Neither of these are locations I would expect to work under current conditions using another mode. As soon as the announcement was posted on the site it all went quiet.

My sympathies to my fellow digimode enthusiasts in the USA. It has always struck me as ironic that hams in the land of the free have to operate under more rigid controls than those of us in “socialist” Europe.

ROS – the chaos continues

Attempts to use the newly developed ROS weak signal mode are resulting in more chaos and frustration this morning as an increasing number of people pile on to the same frequencies. And attempts to decide frequencies to use with the mode seem to indicate total ignorance of other band users and modes. The latest list of recommended frequencies includes:

7.040 – which is going to interfere with the now long-established WSPR weak signal mode
10.140 – which will also interfere with WSPR’s established frequency on that band
14.100.9 – which does not avoid the long established 24/7 packet network which has already complained about interference by this mode, and is also within the range reserved for beacons.

There are a total of three frequencies suggested for 30m, in ignorance of the fact that 30m is supposed to be used only for narrow band modes.

Someone responded to my earlier comment that a body like the IARU should decide which modes can work where, by saying that the IARU does not recommend frequencies for specific modes as that would interfere with experimentation. However I still think they should. When left to individual amateurs you simply get a fight between one group of people who don’t have a clue and another group, users of existing modes, who have strong views about where they should NOT go. Without some overseeing arbitrator this will just end up as a mode war.

I think it is arguable that there just isn’t room for a 2.2KHz wide weak signal mode on the HF bands at all. But if true, who is going to make that decision?

ROS postscript

Late this afternoon I noticed that the ROS website had been updated with a new frequency suggestion for 20m 1 baud operation of 14.105, so I decided to have one more try.

For a while I seemed to have the frequency to myself. However I posted that I was calling there on the K3UK digital sked page. Shortly after, WB2YDS posted that he copied my CQ. I didn’t copy anything from him, but I called again and the second time I got his report, though not perfect copy as the meter in the ROS program showed he was 30db down in the noise.

I sent a report, which I know via the sked page he received, but unfortunately a few seconds after he started KB1PVH started calling CQ and the program started decoding his CQ call instead. With two stations on the frequency it was hopeless, and soon after that Olga called me for dinner and that was that.

Normally an almost-QSO wouldn’t rate a mention, except that I was using 5W from the FT-817 to a dipole, and WB2YDS was also running 5W to a long wire. I don’t think I have ever worked across the Atlantic QRP to QRP before, and indeed I still haven’t, but I nearly did, which shows what the ROS 1 baud mode is capable of if you are lucky enough to have a clear frequency for the duration of the contact.

Unfortunately the software has a number of issues that need to be addressed before it can be considered suitable for general use, one of which is the ability to lock on to the replies to you and ignore anyone else who comes up on the frequency.

Another problem is that ROS is still a mode without a home, and at 2.2KHz wide it needs quite a big home and no-one seems to want to make it welcome. There have already been complaints that by settling on 14.101MHz it is disrupting a long established packet network, and while I’m typing this someone seems to be jamming the 40m frequency 7.053MHz with some sort of digital idle signal.

As I said in an earlier post, the issues involved in releasing something like this to the ham populace at large haven’t been thought through. Perhaps there needs to be an overseeing body like the IARU that decrees what modes can be used and where, so there can be no arguments. It’s a pity that the use of a mode with such promise is being thwarted by so many difficulties, but practical reality often stops you doing what you want to do and ham radio is not immune to this.

ROS disenchantment

I got fed up rather quickly with the new digital mode ROS. On 20m it is a zoo, with everyone calling on top of everyone else and very little being worked. I tried it on the advertised frequency on 10m and got nothing, despite the fact that DX is being heard via WSPR on that band.

What this proves, I think, is that it isn’t enough to be clever enough to come up with a new super duper digital mode. That might be fine if you keep it between you and your fellow experimenters. But if you release it to the masses you need to have a plan for how it will be used given the expected number of users and how you will educate people on how to use it.

If you develop a weak signal mode you have to take account of the fact that a lot of people don’t have a QRP mentality. They can’t see the point in trying to make a contact with low power when they can simply crank the power up. And if they do that, they miss the whole point of the mode and ruin it for everyone else. If a mode cannot be used on a particular band for its intended purpose because of overcrowding or interference perhaps it would be best if it was not used at all.

Instead I decided to use my FT-817 lash-up to try the APRS Messenger APRS-over-PSK63 software instead. Whilst doing that I noticed on the waterfall a strange signal almost spot on the 10.149.70 frequency used for APRS over PSK63. It looks like an upside down three pronged fork but comes in two sizes, one wide and one narrow. It starts sounding like a single tone, and then widens to a chord of three distinct tones. But what is it, why is it on that frequency, and are my PSK63 beacons interfering with it?

Yet Another Digimode

Another new digimode has made its presence on the airwaves. Called ROS, it uses spread spectrum techniques in a bandwidth 2.2kHz wide and offers a choice of two symbol rates, 16 baud and 1 baud. The latter will be of great interest to QRP operators as it is claimed to allow communication at signal levels of 35db below noise, which is better even than WSPR. ROS is an interactive mode, so you can type what you want and have a real QSO, unlike WSPR and the other JT modes that can only send a limited number of fixed messages. What’s more it isn’t an all-or-nothing mode like the JT modes, so you can receive a message that’s part garbage and use your own intelligence to correct the errors if possible.

An interesting feature of ROS is that the software will automatically send an emailed reception report to any transmitting station that includes his email address in his transmission. Quite how it achieves this I don’t know, since I don’t have an email client set up on my shack computer (I do all my email through Gmail.) So I was quite surprised after receiving my first ROS signal from G3ZJO running 1 watt on 40m to see him send “HI” to me on his next over (as you can see in the screengrab.)

This is yet another program that only recognizes the “default” sound card so I am once again receiving using the HB-1A transceiver and am unable to transmit using the mode.

The weak signal capabilities will no doubt make this mode of interest to the QRP fraternity as well as VHF operators working EME and troposcatter. I think the ability to receive an emailed reception report is also rather cool, and a bit more personal than seeing your signal spotted on a website.

However I do wonder what will happen once the massed hordes start using it on HF and begin cranking the power up to try to work further afield. There isn’t enough space on the HF digital mode bands for many simultaneous contacts to take place using a 2.2kHz wide mode.

I’m now listening on 14.101.0 MHz USB so if you try this new program and put your email address in your message you might get a report from me.


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