VarAC V13 AI Gateway
Each of us has his or her own opinions. I’ll share mine at the risk of being “flamed”. (Note: I am an active member of Amateur Radio Emergency Service, but the discussion below is not an official ARES position, only my own.)
Bottom line: I think the AI Gateway in Version 13 is a bad idea.
VarAC is becoming a good mode for EmComm. In a “grid down” situation, where EmComm would likely be employed, VarAC has an advantage over Winlink in that VarAC allows a message sender to connect to a station which is known to be on the air (beaconing) rather than having to depend on a Winlink propagation forecast or resorting to hunt-and-try for a usable Winlink gateway. ( Winlink propagation forecasts are useful when they can be updated via internet, but they rapidly become outdated and in a grid-down situation without Winlink VHF FM, the forecasts take too long to load via Winlink HF — often over an hour.)
In my opinion, VaraHF has two limitations for EmComm use.
Limited slots for any given band: For the standard set of frequencies, any band has only the meeting frequency and ten additional slots to support all the message traffic within HF range. If some of those slots are taken up with people playing chess with each other or using AI to research car repairs, there are even fewer slots available for valid EmComm traffic. A work-around for this is probably VarAC connections outside the standard slot frequencies, but this would need to be pre-arranged.
Congestion on the calling frequency: Except for CQs, all QSOs originate on the calling frequency for a given band and then must QSY to an unused slot. So even if I see a station with Gateway capability on the Beacon list, I must initially try to establish contact on the calling frequency. VarAC’s forced QSY off the calling frequency helps, but I have had experience lately with the calling frequency being chock-a-block with beacons and initial contact establishment for other users. Yes, VarAC has an Emergency mode and identifies stations in that mode with red highlighting, but I don’t think there is any mechanism to prioritize link establishment for emergency stations over routine traffic. Could such a feature be implemented?
Just because we CAN establish a capability doesn’t mean we SHOULD establish that capability. To me, the AI Gateway seems to be a solution in search of a problem, with the potential to degrade existing capabilities.
I welcome other (respectful) comments and opinions.
Mike W4BZM
My primary interests in ham radio has been service oriented with a particular focus in disaster comms (“emcomm”). Of late I was the Sacramento American Red Cross Region Disaster Officer’s “Comm Guy”. The CA Gold Country Region consists of the entire northern part of the state that gets a plethora of disasters spread over very lumpy real estate. With the challenges of communicating with Sacramento HQ from the further reaches of the region, I looked at several modalities to backup the cell network (the prime “goto” for the ARC).
My comments that follow are based on my lessons learned since 1993 volunteering to provide support communications with innumerable public events like marathons and air show safety comms, ARES, and American Red Cross plus the AUXCOM course.
My major take-away lesson: planning for disaster comms, i.e., lining up reources to facilitate gracefull degradation of comms when the SHTF. That means evaluating resources for where and under what circumstances can they be pressed into service. The ICS217 Radio Assignment Worksheet is an excellent planning tool for the purpose.
Digital operating modes that are robust (high noise immunity and use FEC or ARQ; e.g., Winlink, certain modems in the fldigi suite, VarAC, JS8Call, etc.) are best used to prevent without danger of corruption for message traffic that is lengthy (by benchmark is >25 words) or entails a complex lexicon specific to a particular lexicon.
In disasters comms will likely be heavy over the short haul and voice. Medium and long haul will come to play for logistics. I think rejecting an operating mode or feature out-of-hand would be a mistake. In the perspective of VarAC, as I interpret from what he said in this thread, Irad intended VarAC for play. It just so happens VARA and as I see it, VarAC can be pressed into service for emcomm. Further, dismissing AI as a bad idea I think is short-sided. I can see, albeit perhaps a limited, application as a tool for intel. Consider a disaster scenario where something needs to be moved out of the immediate disaster zone and the cell network is already in the crapper. Connecting to a VarAC AI portal out of the area and querying re road conditions could be an excellent usage. Can that be accomplished via a voice circuit or directly by KB2KB over VarAC chat? Sure. But, having just tried such a query about a major highway near me, AI returned information that would take a LOT of KB’ing from a human at a far end station.
AI might also be used to obtain a propagation forecast between two points of itnterest. Imagination could come up with other possible uses (hopefully more than “how can I start a camp fire with no matches – elbow to Irad’s ribs ;))
Managing emcomm traffic potential channels is/has been the discipline within the US ham community. I think concerns with chess players or others taking up bandwidth might be more perception than real. Consider the channels that are cleared by agreement for hurricane traffic. Within the VarAC community, why not identify channels or band segments that would be reserved for VarAC emcom traffic when a disaster strikes?
To Irad, I can see the beneficial utility to prioritize emcomm traffic over routine. Though never an intended use of VarAC I understand, but such a feature could facilitate the transport of emcomm traffic to help relieve the traffic congestion that will occur, regardless. On that specific, I refer any followers of this thread to the After Action Reports from the US Cascadia Rising disaster exercise of a few years back. Winlink ham channels did suffer congestion during a scenario that has a very real possibility of occuring.)
Though in my later years now and having been there, done that, got the tee shirt and the coffeee mug, I am standing on the side to kibitz re emcomm. Were I still “in it” VarAC would definitely be one of the screwdrivers in my tool box. Perhaps not as good for moving lengthy emcomm as Winlink, I think it definitely has its place. Would-be emcomm managers would do well to evaluate its capabilities and keep it close at hand. Best regards
-- n6med