939fly & Gary JS8CALL is a great digital application. HOWEVER... Jordon does not seem to actively update JS8CALL anymore ?? ( as opposed to Irad, the VARAC author) and his bunch of helpers. There are 3 types of digital operators, as I see it: 1. Diehard folks like Gary and several others, they have real QSO's with others and probably run their station 24/7, are always there to help and advise others. 2. FT8 ops.... 5-9 QRZ Computer to Computer with a bit of human on the side. 3. People who want to have real QSO's but cannot do so for one reason of the other. ( I am in that category). See MY QRZ page for an explanation. Nutshell: working unpaid 80 hrs per week 52 weeks per year, running an animal sanctuary. Short of stopping eating..sleeping and going to the toilet, there is NO time for radio, last real holliday 1995, took grandchilderen to Disneyworld in FL. JS8CALL is a wonderful app, but as you notice with both JS8 & VARAC.. the beacon to CQ ration would be 90-1. In my case see (3) above for the reason. I now seldom beacon to avoid annoying folks. JS8CALL documentation is poor, compared to VARAC which is wonderfully documented. VARAC is feature rich... and continues to be enhanced by Irad at every opportunity. Do note that both modes differ in application...ARQ versus XXX... (can't remember name of other mode). Where JS8CALL shines is in it "Who has heard me" implementation. * Where FT8 and derivites shines (sadly) ... QSO after QSO with no effort. Suits many ops down to a T. Folks, this is my 2 cents worth, As our cousins may say: Your opions may differ. Albert EI7II.

Talk about going from strnght to strenght. Well done to Irad and team but i wonder what the winlink folks are saying? Albert. ei7ii.

Larry. Same age as you, so fully understand. I do not belive that this is fixable without a major change to the interface. As i see it: FT9 requires no real input from the user, apart from re-enabling the transmitter. it appears to me that this is all people want. yes, some diehard folks are neck deep into ft8's more advanced modes, but many are not. simple as that, for them it is a method of fast clocking up qso's. Speech to text might indeed be anwer here? Irad would have to comment on whether this is feasible, to be implemented over time ? Larry, I can only speak for myself, but time is my mortal enemy, see my QRZ page and you will understand. 80+ hour weeks, 52 weeks per year, unpaid !, year in year out. Granted, my situation is very unusal, but i just cannot free the time for a lenghy keyboard qso. Irad is making VARAC going from strenght to strenght but even he cannot put more hours into the day. In summary.... the real qso rate will not much improve (irrespective of the amount of users we have on the system, unless MAJOR changes are considered. Sadly.... there are only so many hours in the day and even Irad can't fix that. THANK YOU for taking the time to share your thoughts with us. Albert. EI7II.

Mark. Thank you for taking the time and effort to create this useful document. It is appreciated. Mark, might i suggest that this is included in the varac user documentation as an appendix, of course with Irad's and the document creator)s) permission. there is will be available for permanent reference and will be more likely to be consulted ?> Albert. EI7II.

Gary, i would love to see a "CLEAR ALL" entry, but i very much appreciate Irad's problem... "real estate" is becoming precious. Albert. EI7II.

Mark.. 200 bps is crawling. many a time i am hitting far over 4000 or more, with WINLINK/VARA, connecting to HB9AK in Switzerland about 1200 km away from me. RADIO IS A YEASU ft991a. but.... your SNR values must be very good to get near that. i've been much higher but those occasions are very rare. max 60 watts on a Endfed l/w antenna, it is all I have for HF. Albert

Markus. Gruss Gott. What I tend to do is get an idea about sppeeds first. If good, I get WINLINK to update the stations settings VIA RADIO. That is about an 11K file. I have had that update come down in QUAM 32 mode like a bat out of hell ! Agree, that very very seldom happens and you need a near perfect SNR. I have never send large files from VARAC.. so you will know much more about that than I do. Verzeiung.. mein Deutch sehr slecht. Albert.

Mark.... Irad has hit the nail on the head: PROPAGATION is ULTRA important. Remember... VARAC is an ARQ mode and will demand PERFECT copy, unlike JS8CALL that will insert a few .... where it can't copy that particular bit of text.. As IRAD says: Audio levels have to be set correctly for high speed and yes, While I never run more than 60 watts... I know of people that run 500 watt into their Antennas ! But ultimately Mark, , the propagation Gods have the last say. All else being equal, they will be the deciding factor. Albert.

Marie, While I cannot help you as I run a very different set-up I wanted to congratulate you on your efforts. Yes, at 75 learning is a bit harder. Don't I know it... I will be 80 this year. Marie.... PERSEVERE. There must be folks out here that run a similar set up to you and will be able to help. While I do not run either of them... I hear great things about Omnirig and FLDIGI and it should be easily possible to get your set-up working. TO ALL OUT THERE: ANYONE CAN HELP Marie with his setup ? Should be relatively straight forward. Many thanks. Albert. EI7II.

Victor On Win11. press the WIN key TOGETHER WITH THE SHIFT KEy and while HOLDING THEM DOWN, press the S key A very small window will open at the top of your screen. Forgetting the X, click on the one next to the X, or the one next to that one. That will copy EITHER the WHOLE VISIBLE SCREEN to the Clipboard, OR the window that has the FOCUS. ( and not the whole screen). JUST EXPERIMENT... You CANNOT BREAK ANYTHING. One you have what you "clipped" on the Clipboard, you can use PASTE to PASTE IT into whatever you want, be it a msg you are writing here, or a document you are working on. Again..... you cannot break ANYTHING, go and have a play.. YOU GET PASTE TO CLICK YOUR >RIGHT< MOUSE BUTTON and from the menu that opens when you do that? simply select PASTE. Victor.... Iam about 80. If I can do it.... SO CAN YOU !!!! . Albert. EI7II.

Dieter, can you comment on Irad's reply ??? Albert

Gary has already explained this to you so just keepon connecting. IF you are VERY LUCKY and condiitions are very good you might be lucky and get a 32 QAM connection. It does happen, but it is very rare. When that happens, VARA will truly run like a bat out of hell ! You can'yt miss it...as Gary mentioned, you will have 32 little blocks in that window !!! Good Luck.. and do not feel bad about asking.... I had no idea when i first started what all those colors and weird blocks meant. Albert EI7II.

I think this is a good idea. Low priority perhaps, but still a good idea. Anyone else commenting ? Albert

Rick. PERSEVERE !. I will be eighty this year and if I can master VARAC, so can you. Here is a video link, you might wish to watch. Do not try to take it all in at once and remember, Rome was not build in one day https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FiCkfvcnuOo Albert. EI7II..

Rick. So true. There are various reasons that people might want to leave their station running, but do not wish to beacon... for instance, if they do not want to announce their presense, for reasons only known to them. As I mentioned several times before... I hope that sometime in the future Irad ( VARAC Author) will implement the mechanism that that JS8CALL uses by setting an asterisk to show who has heard your station. But in fairness to Irad, he (and his team of helpers) has already produced such a fantastic program that we will just wait and see what the future brings ? Irad deserves our combined gratitude for having given the hamradio community such a brilliant program Albert. EI7II.

I do this all the time. if you know the call you want, nothing stops you from trying to either do a connect, or a PING to him/ her. works perfectly ok. Albert. EI7II.

Don, I will leave my station running for most of the day on 20. See if you can drop me a VMAIL? As per my QRZ page... I am often away, so I might not be able to handle a direct QSO. Hope you hear from you ? Albert. EI7II.

Brett and Don. We can only hope. but it looks like varac is outpacing js8 at this time. perhaps Jordan is hellish busy and just cannot spend the time ? ran varac this morning with a ZL2, rock solid connection for 45 minutes. at 50 watts. Amazing. I have so little free time to experiment. my whisper station runs almost 24/7 but that does not require me in person. unbelievable where my 100-200 milliwats end up. Hawaii, New Zealand, Antarctica, Taiwan. west coast of Greenland , Japan, etc etc all tribute to Joe Taylor who gave us that fantastic mode. Albert

Brett and Don. Just a THANK YOU for the excellent VMAIL description posted. the chances we will bump into each other are small... so when I get a decent USA varac connection i will leave a vmail marked at the station i am connected to, for you to pick-up. Was talking to LATVIA this morning...SNR was very good and VARAC was running like a bat out of hell. Unrelated.... the one thing I still think Jordan's JS8CALL beats VARAC in is the fact that the * tells me that i have been heard. To get VARAC to tell me that I have to PING the prospect. While not a big deal, it is another step to take. Due to Irad's tireless implementation of new features VARAC is going from strength to strength and IRAD deserves our gratitude for his continued pursuit to make this one of the finest Digital Comms programs around. Albert. EI7II.

Don. Many thanks. Don't get me wrong. I would love to be able to run 24/7. However, the criminally insane electricity prices here in EI land prohibit it for me. However... my Whisper transmitter does run almost 24/7 and is heard accross the globe. Were things different, I would most certainly run 24/7 I also used to do so with my KIWISDR unit, but even that is now switched off. Shame, as there are only 6 KIWISDR publically available units in Ireland. Yes, VARAC is great in relaying, just as JS8CALL is and I have used that capability in the past. Don, again, your answer is much appreciated. Let's hope for better times ahead. Wish I could afford solar panels with proper batteries but they are out of my reach moneywise. Albert EI7II