Ask ten amateur radio operators about digital modes, and you’ll get 11 different answers. Digital evokes some strong opinions from hams, good and bad. That’s okay! Hams are a diverse bunch, and we don’t have to like all the same things.
JCAR is soon going to send a digital data transmission as part of its weekly ARES Training Net. In an actual emergency, we will still have to pass data back and forth, and digital modes have significant advantages over phone modes for data transfer.
We’ll be using a mode called MT63-2000L, which works well on noisy repeaters and doesn’t require any special equipment to decode and send. If you’re interested in setting up a computer to decode our digital transmissions, see our guide here: https://jcar.us/digital-mode-decode-setup/.