[amsat-bb] Re: IO-26 as digital EMAIL relay?

[Douglas Quagliana]

Bob wrote:

>In the old days, it required everyone to get a $300 modem and use an 
SSB
>rig on the downlink.  But the Uplink is FM.  SO anyone can transmit.  
And
>these days, somone I am sure has already written the sound-card 
generate
>the manchester uplink!

Hi Bob,
I wrote that program to generate the Manchester uplink on a soundcard
about ten years ago. The program is called UPW for "Uplink to Pacsats
for Windows" and it's at

http://www.quagliana.com/upw/index.html

if anyone is still interested in it.  UPW will generate the proper 1200 
baud
AX.25 APRS packet with NRZI and Manchester encoding suitable for
feeding to the microphone of an FM transmitter.  UPW is also mentioned
on your APRS ASTARS page.   :-)

Bob continues:
>But if it is a pacsat, can't it act as a digipeater if you just set 
the DIGI bit to on?

I think there's more to digipeating than just setting the digi bit.  I 
believe
IO-26 is still in MBL mode or something similar.  I am pretty sure the
satellite is not running the full PACSAT BBS software which was needed
to digipeat AX25 packets, but I'll defer to Mark, N8MH, on the 
specifics of
the current status of IO-26.

73,
Douglas KA2UPW/5