RE: data-modes-only ARRL Field Day. I ran the club's digital tent last night. So much QRM! I was seeing wall-to-wall stations on the waterfall, but WSJT-X was only able to decode one or two at a time. I'm not really a contester so I wasn't sure what to do, other than play with RF/AF gain settings, but after the Sun went down pretty much every band was saturated (also shows what's possible when you get out of the suburbs and noisy switching PSUs).
A data mode contest should have a variety of operating modes, not just the du jour hot item, and maybe spread out a little beyond the default frequency for the JT modes at least. But I like the idea and I think it could prove popular.
This will also be an achilles heel for any comms channel in an emergency, including Starlink. There's only so much bandwidth available, even over fiber, and it all has to coalesse somewhere. In the case of Starlink they only have the spectrum they're assigned. In an emergency situation there's a very high likelihood of misaligned or poorly deployed terminals, such as under tree cover or other situations where they don't have a full view of the sky. That would cause more bad packets/frames and retires making it even worse. Note that this often happens when a disaster takes down key cell towers. The other towers are able to pick up the slack, but the bandwidth becomes saturated and subscribers with marginal handsets end up retrying.
The proper EMCOM response is to be flexible and have several redundant options. And hams should be ready to help, not only with our toys, but also be able to set up a Starlink terminal, fix solar power issues and make up an Ethernet cable if necessary. Do what you can to help.
RE: data-modes-only ARRL Field Day. I ran the club's digital tent last night. So much QRM! I was seeing wall-to-wall stations on the waterfall, but WSJT-X was only able to decode one or two at a time. I'm not really a contester so I wasn't sure what to do, other than play with RF/AF gain settings, but after the Sun went down pretty much every band was saturated (also shows what's possible when you get out of the suburbs and noisy switching PSUs).
A data mode contest should have a variety of operating modes, not just the du jour hot item, and maybe spread out a little beyond the default frequency for the JT modes at least. But I like the idea and I think it could prove popular.
This will also be an achilles heel for any comms channel in an emergency, including Starlink. There's only so much bandwidth available, even over fiber, and it all has to coalesse somewhere. In the case of Starlink they only have the spectrum they're assigned. In an emergency situation there's a very high likelihood of misaligned or poorly deployed terminals, such as under tree cover or other situations where they don't have a full view of the sky. That would cause more bad packets/frames and retires making it even worse. Note that this often happens when a disaster takes down key cell towers. The other towers are able to pick up the slack, but the bandwidth becomes saturated and subscribers with marginal handsets end up retrying.
The proper EMCOM response is to be flexible and have several redundant options. And hams should be ready to help, not only with our toys, but also be able to set up a Starlink terminal, fix solar power issues and make up an Ethernet cable if necessary. Do what you can to help.