| WD0GVH |
Rating:      |
2010-11-25 | |
| Great customer support |
Time Owned: more than 12 months. |
I've owned Pk Term '99, now called Radio Operations Center, for more years than I can remember. It has always done everything I've ask of it and more. This is software I feel you cannot live without if you have a PK-232. I recently tried to install it on a computer that had the Windows 7 operating system. I could not get the program working. After several days I gave up and called Customer Support. After about 45 mins. on the phone with Richard, he had the program working better than ever. I know if you have not upgraded the program in the past year, you must pay for support but come on, for a fee you get real support from someone that knows the program inside and out, not someone in another country following a flow chart in some book. Great support is worth paying for and this was the best I've received. A big thanks to Richard.
Tom
WD0GVH |
|
| WA3IVX |
Rating:      |
2008-04-01 | |
| Great Software, especially SIAM |
Time Owned: more than 12 months. |
Having used PK-Term for some time now, I sure as heck wouldn't be using any other program, even though I am sure there are clones around.
The PK-Term is a totally intuitive program, with everything one needs, and even things that are simply "nice to have", but once used, are darn well indespensable. I am referring, of course to the SIAM mode. While it isn't infallible (lets think on line encryption, etc.) it does go a long way toward ID of unknown sigs.
Used with one's HF/VHF rig, frankly, I consider it best in show. Everything is laid out in a logical pattern, with only mouse clicks required to change modes and parameters, and of course, typing whatever message or announcement one wants.
I have also found customer support to be outstanding, and those at CSS to go out of their way to help solve a problem both with setup and operation.
As far as price goes, well, one doesn't get great software off of a pirate download site. If you want quality in a car, you pay the nickel, so what is the difference with software?? I have no problem with price for quality software that does exactly what I expect it to do. When that software is absolutely essential for what one is doing on the radio (MARS),well, it is worth the price, and more!! I don't like fooling around with stuff that is complication on top of complication, which is what a lot of radio software has become.
This just can't be beat, IMHO, and with the WeFax option, it just keeps getting better. I happen to like interrelated programs from the same mfgr, the same as I liked similar cockpits in the same mfgr of aircraft (until I lost my Medical --hi--). One doesn't have to spend valuable time retraining to use the new stuff, because it is similar to the old version.
I personally have never had a crash, a problem, nor lacked for knowing to what comm port the TNC
was connected, nor had to guess at compatible baud rates, the Wizard did it with no difficulty, and the computer which I use for comms has 6 of 'em.
Bottom line, this is one heck of a value, works effortlessly, and I will continue to buy upgrades and additional software from CSS as it becomes available, should I require same.
This is a real winner!!
73 de Greg "GW" Moore
WA3IVX (MARS call withheld)
----------------------
Earlier 5-star review posted by WA3IVX on 2004-04-17
I use PK-term 99 with two PK-232's, one of which is used as a 24/7 packet node, although it is "full up" with all the mods to be current (PSK/DSP).
The ease of using the program is phenominal. While I still maintain the capability of running in a terminal mode, using the command window, I also have the GUI interface with every function laid out in the icons in the menu bar.
Any problems I have had have turned out to be due to my going through a learning curve with both the PK-232's and PC-Term99 (I have previously used another soundcard based program, and sill do for the modes which the PK-232 does not provide (MT-63, MFSK, etc.)
Having had problems with some of the modes using the soundcard software, one can see that the root cause of a lot of problems is not the program, nor the TNC, but simply Window's necessity to run programs the way Windows wants to, and not how one would run them if they programmed it themselves. Since Windows is always subject to interrupts, and the resource allocation is run via Windows, the timing cannot be precise.
I have NO complaints whatsoever with PK-Term99. It's a great program, especially the SIAM function, and permits one to concentrate on Operation and not Programming. While both are great to do, it is a much better experience to be able to simply use the PK-Term program than to go through writing macros or entering commands via a terminal program.
Since most of my operating is MARS, this is very important to me. Operation should be second nature, because of the mission, and not taken up with programming. |
|
| W0BKR |
Rating:     |
2007-09-09 | |
| Okay, but pricey |
Time Owned: more than 12 months. |
| I have had the PKTERM for a while now and it works fine on RTTY which is primarily what I use. When I got a vanity call assigned, I had to contact CSS for a software key so when connecting on Packet, doesn't connect with my old call. To get a new key isn't possible now, but I can send the $50 to get an "upgrade". Come on. No thanks. For that price, will start the shopping around process again. |
|
| M0BAU |
Rating:  |
2007-07-15 | |
| NOT GOOD |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
| I SAW THE AD IN QST SO I THOUGHT I WOULD TRY IT OUT IN DEMO MODE, AM I SORRY..RX ONLY IN HF MODE AD BANNER ALWAYS ON SCREEN...SO 'UNISTALL' HE THINKS...ENDED UP DOING A SYSTEM RESTORE TO DO IT...AS ABOVE NOT GOOD |
|
| NV0U |
Rating:  |
2006-10-14 | |
| What a bunch of rubbish |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
This could be one slick program, but it has so many things that make me mad that I can't even give it one star. First up is the "we want to help you" junk when you install it. It requires the user to sit and let it go probing every port on your system looking for stuff. This is not good on so many counts - had I not been paying attention, it would have just spent the last 5 minutes in keydown because it lit up my Rigblaster Pro on 15 CW. I caught it really quick and powered the rig off, but that is REALLY poor behavior for a program. Any software author should at least give the user some warning of what can happen, and the user should also be able to skip this "autoprobing" junk if they want to. Bad, programmer, bad!
Next problem: What is up with have to restart the program all the time? Did the program authors skip that day in computer college where you get to learn how to set global variables? You, the user, get to restart the program as often as the dreaded "Thank you for using notepad.exe. Windows now needs to restart" messages that Microsoft puts us through.
Ya know, just looking at this horrible thing for only 30 minutes, I came to the conclusion that it is getting removed right now. Especially for a program where the authors want $99 for it. |
|
| KG6QMZ |
Rating:      |
2006-08-26 | |
| Good software |
Time Owned: more than 12 months. |
| PkTerm operates well. I have had no problems with it. I disagree with any reviewer giving this software a 0 or 1. There are many levels of vailure to look at: the PC, the operating system of the PC, electrical connections and TNC. It is a complicated system with many pieces and the software works fine when everything else works well. I called the CSSI with a question during initial setup and they were very accomodating. Users need a shielded cable so RF does not interrupt serial data. |
|
| N4ZOU |
Rating:  |
2003-03-08 | |
| Bad software |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
| I tryed it with both a PK-232MBX and a PK-900. Simply put it's a waste of your money. I went back to using the terminal in Logger to run my PK-900. Host mode is not used in the Logger terminal and so you can program it to do things the way you want them done and not the way the programer thinks it should work in a host mode program. |
|
| K9SSL |
Rating:      |
2003-03-08 | |
| PkTerm Long Time User |
Time Owned: more than 12 months. |
I have been using PkTerm with an 8 year old Pentium 133 with 64 meg of RAM for about 2 to 3 years. I use PkTerm with a PK900/DSP/PSK31 and I'm really pleased with the software.
The OS is Win98SE.
I would strongly suggest that many problems with software can be resolved by making sure that the Win98 OS is updated to WIN98SE and then patched with all the Microsoft updates using WINDOWS UPDATE.
I'd be happy to field any questions about the PK900 or PkTerm by email
73, Mike
|
|
| W2GZD |
Rating:  |
2003-03-04 | |
| Not ready for prime time |
Time Owned: 6 to 12 months. |
I am disappointed with PKTerm 99 for windows using Windows 98. The problems that I encounter is that the program crashes when the ASCII mode is selected, and the program crashes everytime thereafter until you get into the program itself and change the "LASTMODE" to something other than ASCII. There is an intermittent difficulty with the transmit mode in Pactor in that it disconnects and/or goes into FEC. There is a problem with minimizing and normalizing the windows of this program. The program is unstable and annoying at my shack.
Unlike the user manual for the (AEA)Timewave TNC which is good, the program manual for the PKTerm 99 software package is, in my opinion, poor. |
|
| WM5R |
Rating:     |
2000-06-29 | |
| Only a few problems |
Time Owned: 6 to 12 months. |
PkTerm'99 is an OK program, as far as Windows software goes. There are only really two things that bug me. For one thing, there are like four windows that come up every time I launch the program. All I really want is the one main window (I couldn't care less about a window for monitoring unproto packets on a port I don't have hooked up to a rig!) and so I end up closing three windows every time I launch the app, which is just annoying.
The other problem is that apparently there's a bug in the code that causes my AEA PK-900 to not stop transmitting
about one time out of every ten. Supposedly this will be fixed in the next release.
If they let me choose to not see those useless windows on launch, and fix the RTTY (and, I understand, numerous PACTOR) bugs, I'd recommend this software to anyone.
|
|