SeaMail Newsletter No 3 Testing has continued with a fair volume of traffic being sent via Penta Comstat VZX. ZKRT has been down for a month due to the absence of the SYSOP but will be coming back on line next month. Version 1.06 of the SeaMail Shore mail box manager has remained stable for the past week. We are getting regular traffic through the gateway although the traffic is not of a volume that would be considered remotely profitable at this stage, it is helping us to gauge the quality of the service we hope to provide. SeaMail Ship - Mail box manager has been tested by a number of individuals. The software is being modified to make it more user friendly and erradicate a few bugs that have been found. Updates will shortly be posted to our web page. At the Gosford site, Penta Comstat have been doing diverse experimentation with various antennas The rhombic antenna was moved to a discone and then to a broadband dipole which is now being monitored by spectrum management Australia and we are getting very good signal reports. This somewhat helps the morale of Derek Barnard of Penta Comstat and Marc Robinson of Philip Collins Associates who spent several weekends in the antenna farm, returning to the shack bloodied from the leaches who pervade the farm. ZKRT Rarotonga have upgraded the computer /radio equipment. ZKRT will be running SeaMail with a KAM plus and also be offering GTOR/PACTOR service. Our data collection has started to accrue accurate records of traffic throughput and helps us come up with a billing algorithm which is as low cost as possible while funding the station running cost and providing a reasonable return for all involved. We see that GTOR is marginally better than Pactor under most conditions. At present we see 1 Kilobyte (7 bit ASCII one stop bit) going through in under 2 minutes. Our original billing algorithm of one $2 unit for 5 minutes came under criticism as it would discriminate against short EMAILs. Our aim is to keep as many people in touch with each other and our whole service is geared towards many short EMails as possible. We are therefore proposing to lower the unit rating to 2 minutes and charging $1 for this. We will keep connections less than 30 seconds free provided that there are only 2 such connections within a 24 hour period - this will allow a user to check to see if there is any mail without being charged for it. Other service providers charge a guaranteed rate per bit (1/8th of a byte) transferred. We cannot afford the risk of bad propagation and have to pass this risk to the consumer. We are in the business of renting radio equipment and all the backup support at rate of 50 cents a minute plus a $25 monthly service charge (membership). By doing so we cover our costs and hopefully provide a service which bridges the gap until inexpensive global communications become a reality. Any feedback you can give on this newsletter would be much appreciated. Jonathan Selby SeaGate Administrator ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- SeaMail Coverage and stations. There are 2 SeaMail stations currently operating providing nearly 24 hour coverage of the Pacific and Indian Oceans and will provide near global coverage for up to 4 hours a day. Penta Comstat VZX operates on the following USB frequencies 24 hours a day: Assigned freq. kHz. Upper Sideband Dial kHz 6357 6354.8 8442 8439.8 12680 12677.8 16908 16905.8 NikoRadio ZKRT operates on the following frequencies and times: Assigned freq. kHz. Upper Sideband Dial kHz 6928.3 6930.5 to be announced 12214.5 12212.3 09:30 UTC - 1700 UTC Latest information on http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/xaxero