Thanks to everyone who sent reception reports, screenshot, audio samples, and other attachments after listening to VOA Radiogram during the weekend of April 27-28.

After six weeks of experimenting with digital text modes, I think we can conclude that the PSK modes are good, MT63, Olivia, and Thor are better, but MFSK remains the best.

We can coin a new acronym: FUM – Fastest Usable Mode. It appears that these would be our FUMs:

MFSK16 (58 wpm): when poor reception conditions are expected

MFSK32 (120 wpm): when fair reception conditions are expected

MFSK64 (240 wpm): when good reception conditions are expected

MFSK128 (480 wpm): when perfect reception conditions are expected (eg local FM or AM)

During reception of the Sunday 1930 UTC broadcast on 15670 kHz, I experienced a poor signal (being in the skip zone), moderate fading, and local noise. Excellent conditions to test digital text modes. This audio excerpt shows how MFSK16 provided a perfect decode even in these conditions. The Fldigi readout is below, showing MFSK64 on top, MFSK16 on the bottom: