VarAC - Digital Mode
Digital is cool
A few days ago I was chatting with another Amateur on JS8 on 20 meters, and there were signals that sounded, for lack of a better description, R2D2 in a bit of a hurry. I asked what they were, and he said they VARA signals. I’ve heard the signals before and never had a clue what they were because I generally want to know what strange sounds I’m hearing actually are but was usually busy. I never bothered to find out.
So, that evening I started doing searches on VARA and VarAC.
What I have yet to find is what “VARA” stands for. It is a proprietary mode of communication, rather like Pactor. I’m sort of a non-compliant person when it comes to that kind of thing, but curiousity gets to me from time to time and I use Pactor (the non-proprietary version) and I’ve tried VARA now.
There is a “slow version” and a “fast version”. You pay $70 USD to get a license for the “fast version”. Rather the same with Pactor. Pactor has it’s uses, and we used it on the ship while crusing using “Winlink”. Many cruisers use “SailMail”, essentially the same thing, except using Marine HF frequencies insteiad of Amateur Radio frequencies.
I ended up downloading VarAC for HF and also the Vara.exe program (the actual Modem software). I installed it on my Linux Mint machine using WINE to run it. (WINE is software that allows the operation of Windows-based software under linux). Essentially, you are running Windows .exe files under a Linux kernel, which is generally not optimum, but it works.
I prefer programs that run under Linux as a stand-alone resource, because they simply run better. Windows and Microsoft have their own issues, problems and bugs. The security of that OS is questionable, and constant updates make it, to me, untenable to use in “bad circumstances”. All that aside though, I believe that VarAC/VARA is an interesting program.
It provides some error checking, you can leave “mail”, make contacts and have keyboard-to-keyboard chats with it.
This is a “draft” post, so I will be editing it later, with some links, screen shots and so on. Check back later today or tomorrow for more on this interesting mode, VARA.
Edit: Please note that I needed to have Flrig loaded and running to be able to control my Icom radio. While there are several methods to do so, the Windows version running under WINE doesn’t recognize my Signalink USB port on the laptops, so therefore I needed a way to switch frequencies without having to fiddle with the radio knobs.
Here’s some links for you to explore:
VarAC Download page (Windows, zips for Linux, etc)
VarAC Extensions (Extra programs)
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