Timewave PK-900, Operating Manual

Page: 168 / 392

11.8 Monitoring ARQ PACTOR Contacts with PTLIST
Use the "PTLIST" command to monitor ARQ traffic flowing between two
stations linked in a PACTOR ARQ contact. Your PK-900 will try to
display the text of whichever of the two linked ARQ stations is the
Information Sending Station at the moment.
Monitoring two linked PACTOR ARQ stations does not provide the error
correction enjoyed by the linked stations. Since your PK-900 is not
part of the "handshake" you do not generate the request for repeat.
Your PK-900 will test for the correct CRC error check and will not
display messages with errors. Data blocks with errors will be
designated with four error symbols. The default error symbol is the
underline (_). See the command summary for ERchr, the error symbol.
Your PK-900 will not print a block of data if that block contains
the same sequence number as the previous block. If the "ISS"
(Information Sending Station) is repeating the same block, you won't
print it twice.
11.9 PACTOR MailDrop Operation
The PK-900 allows PACTOR as well as Packet and AMTOR access to the
MailDrop. Messages that originate in Packet or AMTOR can be accessed
remotely in PACTOR and messages that originate from a remote PACTOR
station can be accessed by Packet and AMTOR users of your MailDrop.
This section of the manual talks about basic PACTOR mailbox operation.
Section 11.10 will discuss how to pass message traffic from PACTOR to
Packet and vice versa.
Make sure that you understand MailDrop Operation in Chapter 5 and the
basic PACTOR operation described earlier in this chapter before
putting your PACTOR MailDrop on the air.
11.9.1 Special Operating Considerations
The PACTOR MailDrop has been designed with a "Watchdog" safety feature
so that it may perform safely without constant attention. If a remote
station is linked with your PACTOR MailDrop and no traffic is passed
for 5 minutes, the link will drop and your transmitter will shut off.
At this writing however, unattended operation below 30 MHz is not
legal for US amateurs unless they hold a Special Temporary
Authorization (STA) from the FCC for this purpose. This restriction
may soon change, but until then US amateurs must be sure to always
have control of their HF transmitters when any automatic device such
as the PK-900 MailDrop is in operation.
With this in mind, we have designed the PACTOR MailDrop so that it can
be disabled at any time during an ARQ link simply by turning the
command TMAIL (TOR MAIL) OFF. This allows you the SYSOP to make your
MailDrop available to other stations and still break in to chat with
remote stations at any time. This could come in handy should you
want to provide some help or information to a remote station using
your PACTOR MailDrop.
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