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Reviews For: AEA FAXIII

Category: Ham Software/Apps - Other than logging

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Review Summary For : AEA FAXIII
Reviews: 1MSRP: 94 in 1995
Description:
FAX, rtty (baudot, ascii, selcal), fec (sitor B, amtor B,
navtex), morse code receiving system. It includes the serial
decoder, the software and the instruction manual.
Works with DOS only!
Product is not in production
More Info: http://www.timewave.com/aea.html
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
0015
KD7RDZI2 Rating: 2010-10-13
Still good! Time Owned: more than 12 months.
Bought it in 1995 in the giurassic era of PC and operating systems. It's a DOS software so you could still use Windows98, Windows95, 3.1 but probably not XP and later versions.

The software is well designed especially for FAX. The manual is fantastic and explains many possibilities beyond a basic use. I tried several other free softwares but this is by far the best designed for fax. Intuitive. After a careful reading of the manual you learn everyday new features. There is a detailed database as well, it can autolist and save all the coming pictures and if you have most ham icom and certain receivers from kenwood, lowe and yaesu you may ask the software to choose the frequencies or even the transmissions to autosave it on the PC.

It decodes very well all the other modes such as rtty as well. Morse code decoding is ok for general listening.

I would say that this software is still fine to SWLs. Of course it does not replace Ham Radio Deluxe for RTTY and other modes, but It is worth mentioning that this software can detect automatically all types of hf fax, it detects the speeds of digital modes, cw included.

The decoder connects the radio output to the serial port of computers. At the time there were no sound cards or at least they were very expensive. The serial decoder was working fine. On the back of the AEAfax decoder it has another serial connector so you can plug another device you can use when AEAFAXIII is turned off without plugging in and out everytime.

Other decoders may work as well. The hamcommm decoder by Pervisell seems to me slightly better and the FAX interface LX.1049 by Nuova Elettronica
seems slightly better than the hamcomm for fax mode. I used all these interfaces with the AEAFAXIII software so at the moment my preferite is the LX.1049.

The user manual is fantastic, very informative and very concise.

Compared to the free version of Multipsk I say I still prefer the AEAFAXIII at least for what regards FAX. Ham Radio Deluxe does have SSTV but what about FAX? Other softwares I tried may be great but are meant for polar satllites. AeafaxIII is only meant for FAX in the HF band (Satellite rebroadcasts on HF included), NOT for VHF, UHF, SHF FAX.

Overall the AEAFAXIII was a good value. It was not just an excellent software, it was a package with hardware and a very good manual.

Still I like it! now!