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Mode Menu
You will find links(at bottom of page) to various types of modes, I will try to give some specs on the mode and what I know about them on performance the good bad and ugly of them all. Most of the information investigated by Pascal BIMAS F1ULT
You might hear some OM out there tell you a certain mode is the best to use, do not always believe this because they are only telling you part of the story, It usually bulls down to what the application you are using the mode for , There are some modes that are better at multipathing, doppler shifting etc. but some are better on low duty cycle or high signal to noise ratio. but there is always a strong and a weak point about each mode out there.
Most modes are a lot more sensitive compared to AM voice or SSB, The slower the mode usually is more sensitive to weak signals, the more narrow the mode is the more Signal to noise ratio you will have and the wider the bandwidth is the better it can handle ionspheric effects (i.e. Selective fading, multipathing etc.)
Usually the modes that have FEC or interleaving have the least amount of BER (Bit Error Rate). Sometimes it is good idea to choose a bandwidth and/or techinque that fits the signal strengths or application.
Other considerations is that not all modes will fit the propagation at that particular time , like in the summer there can be a lot of lightning hash that can cause alot of of static on the bands thus, hiding the bits from being decode correctly, so a more robust mode would be a good choice to use, on the lower band multipathing can become pretty heavy and cause alot of errors as well thus, using a FEC type of mode might be a better choice..
FSK or MFSK type of modes might be a better choice on the lower bands as well and usually the bandwidth on those types of modes can handle multipathing pretty well.
Some modes are better on making extreme DX contacts with and others are better for ragchewing and also some modes are great for Networking such as ALE or PAX or PACTOR


DO's and DON'Ts in Digital Modes
How to setup your audio drive in Digital Modes
Pass band Frequency vs. Real frequency and Spotting correctly
Band Plan Explained