OK I did a little more digging and found out some more info. There was a lot of discussion regarding NTIA compliance for MARS a few years back. Some hams even went and upgraded their HF rigs with the high stability crystals to be in compliance with the then published CAP acceptance list of acceptable transceivers. I think when MARS realized that they would lose most of their membership if compliance was mandated they backed off the requirement.At this time there are NO amateur transceivers that comply with the technical requirements of CAP. As a side note, at a MARS conference a few years back it was noted that the NTIA mandate was more to accommodate digital modes and the specifications affected the receivers more than the transmitters. At this time most amateur HF radios are compliant for use on MARS. None are compliant with CAP. You gotta forgive me for getting things mixed up. After all I am not in the USA but I do try and keep up with rule and tech spec changes down there.
The Kenwood TS 590S and SG will perform to their tolerance level - right out of the box.
Using FLDIGI - there is no set standard for tolerance as long as the transceiver is of a modern design. The way that it works, when you have the RXID / TXID turned on, when the originating station executes a transmission, a tone is set out beforehand, and all of the computers locks onto that tone. It basically adjusts all of the computers so everyone is on the same frequency. The radio can be high or low and yet on the waterfall -the computer can still lock onto it. The thing is - if the net takes place say on 7.070.5 and will meet on 1500 on the waterfall - you need to be on frequency so that when the net starts everyone is locked onto the same signal.
This pretty much eliminates old junk - like a Kenwood TS 520 / 530 - that doesn't have a digital display to this resolution, or is not stable enough to be on frequency or stay on frequency.
Each time someone transmits, a warbly sound is made and this adjusts everyone else's computer to where the originating stations computer and transceiver is at on the waterfall.
I bitched about this until finally I just stopped participating all together.
The little box at the bottom tells you where you are tuned, and yet these old farts didn't know how to tune or adjust so everyone was on 1500 and the tune jumped all over the screen because these bung holes were old and didn't know what they were doing..
The other big deal was that FLDIGI is an open source code, which means it can be edited by everyone using it. The version changed weekly, and there was no automatic updates. You basically had to delete the old version and download the new version.
Many times there was mistakes in the code and the newer version did not work until someone fixed it. All you had to do was miss an updated version and a bunch of guys would be down your throat telling you that you are using the wrong version.
It all turned into a pissing match of a bunch of hams that were all trying to impress each other with how smart they were and how they could come up with idea's to make things better, while ignoring that not everyone is a computer programmer.
Computer programmers are weird. They have their own language and humor.
Think - Big Bang Theory and Sheldon!
