Roy Haines with Dewey Foley wrote:
"John S." wrote in message
oups.com...
Take a look at the www.scancat.com site for a lot of information on
Hoka decoders.

I found this copy of an MT review on the same site:
http://www.scancat.com/rvw-c3.html

I don't know the age of the review, however I think it may not be
recent because the AEA-PK232MBX is mentioned in a brief comparison to
what seems to be a very pricey Hoka decoder. There are several other
models at greater and lesser prices with extensive reviews. The site
also shows a link to a yahoo discussion group which might be the place
to ask about users of Hoka products.

At one time I was really into decoding digital signals, but dropped out
because the stuff I could decode on a PK232MBX and Kenwood R-5000 setup
had pretty much disappeared.

What has been your experience with the digital services on HF - is
there much left that can be translated into readable english?


Thanks for the replies!!

Sure, good to talk with another digital ute enthusiast!!

Well, first off... the original Hoka units were basically a donglized serial
device
(modulating audio into digital on/off signals) which fed some fairly cool
but primitive software. Nowadays I think everything is through the
soundcard.
The old Hoka still works for me, but I am interested in stuff that is more
modern,
and thus the need for an upgrade.

Is there much out there that can be converted to readable english with
an advanced decoder? My dated experience with the PK232MBX was that
there wasn't much beyond weather stuff and that was disappearing. I've
heard that most of the digital stuff is encrypted and unreadable.



Secondly, I havent even looked at HF digital signals in probably 5 years.
Staying in UHF/VHF, 900 Mhz mainly (use your imagination for that, involving
taps for discriminator output). Since the paradigm shifted from a particular
mode
of communication to another, the Hoka is obsolete for me for that one
particular
idiosyncracy.

So tell me about what you are hearing (or reading) in the VHF/UHF
range. Anything that can be translated to readable english?



One day it was all interceptable. The next day it all changed. The
transmission
methodology mutated, much to my surprise. Not being handy with an iron, and
having some disposable income, I would venture some cash for something that
could demodulate these signals. But I see that the new Hoka stuff for the
sound
card will do the trick. Its like $4,000 for the CD, though, and my income
isnt
THAT disposable!

Yeah, the good old days of decoding news, diplomatic stuff, russians,
ship-to-shore traffic, etc., in TDM, FDM (yes!) TOR and all the other
interesting modes are pretty much gone.


I reckon that if I did get back into the swing of digital HF though, I would
tune
and tune and tune some more til I found something neat, foregoing the
typical schedules of weather faxes for a while at least. I have some time
off this
week, so perhaps I will check the propagation charts and dial away to see
what
pops up.

Long ago for a time, I would monitor Argentinian news faxes on my old
Universal
Decoder with that old 8 inch Apple screen, but thats old school I guess by
now!

Yeah, I had a 64K ram Radio Shack CoCo with a homebrew RF modulator to
drive a 40 character monitor fed by a Kenwood R-5000 and AEA PK232MBX.
And it worked! Successive IBM PC's were never quite as much of a
challenge, but much easier to read.


Later, I read Cuban Embassy Diplomatic traffic, discussing blacklisting code
named
members from meetings and such. In the clear!!

Monitoring the open (more or less) maritime traffic would be pretty darned
rad
if some sh*t hit the fan on the high seas... imagine a lone RTO in the shack
sending
out a distress message that leads to an international news item. The
possibility is
fairly high for something like that, and that prospect is fairly exciting,
to me at least.

Checking out the WUN newsletter tells me that its still posible to pick up
interesting
things now and again. In the urbanized areas of the U.S. though, QRM is so
freaking
prominent I would imagine its as frustrating to us as it is to an astronomer
in Las Vegas
trying to examine a distant planet through the ambient light of a billion
light bulbs, and the
drunken tobacco laden exhaustbreath of a billion visitors a day (you get the
picture!).

Damn, its gets harder and harder for us, dont it?!

Checking out the specs on the new Hoka stuff just gets me all giddy again...
too bad its
JUST out of reach of this enthusiast.

I should call Jim down at ScanCat to get his take on it. We go back probably
10-12 years.

Thanks again for your replies.