A heads up that I plan to drop the WINMOR mode from my gateways May 5, 2020. WINMOR is not as reliable and it’s performance is so slow I have decided to drop it. I’m going to show you some data that I hope will persuade you to install and license VARA ($69) if you don’t have an SCS modem. The same license can also be used with VARA FM.
BACKGROUND:
I have been running HF band simulations on the various WINLINK modes under different signal to noise conditions and under different levels of multipath interference and it really illustrates the performance of the different modes. I can tell you that it is much more difficult to even get the data on WINMOR and ARDOP as they are so much more likely to drop a connection when conditions falter.
Here is some preliminary data on this testing and I hope it will help convince you to up your game to VARA HF if you can’t afford an SCS TNC:
Here is the data for wideband Gaussian noise:
Notice that VARA actually beats Pactor 3 when conditions are decent and leaves ARDOP in the dust. ARDOP is somewhat better than WINMOR.
This graph shows the simulator results for some amount of multipath added in. For this case, VARA is actually beating Pactor 3! WINMOR and ARDOP get crushed by multipath and wouldn’t even connect at the 0dB point.
Conclusion:
I recognize that not everyone can afford $69 for a VARA license – for what it gets you in performance, it seems like a bargain to me. For that reason, I don’t plan to drop ARDOP at this time. DO NOT use the unlicensed version of VARA HF for use other than evaluation – it is MUCH slower than WINMOR and ARDOP!
If you are serious about moving digital data over HF in an emergency, please consider upgrading from ARDOP!
Tom N5TW