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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!bonnie!akgua!gatech!seismo!brl-tgr!tgr!Dave-Platt%LADC@cisl-service-multics.arpa
From: Dave-Platt%LADC@cisl-service-multics.arpa (Dave Platt)
Newsgroups: net.micro
Subject: re:DAK modem
Message-ID: <420@brl-tgr.ARPA>
Date: Mon, 9-Dec-85 10:42:08 EST
Article-I.D.: brl-tgr.420
Posted: Mon Dec  9 10:42:08 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 11-Dec-85 03:52:55 EST
Sender: news@brl-tgr.ARPA
Lines: 44

I saw the modem in the DAK catalog, and ordered it about a month ago.
Un(?)fortunately, DAK gorfed up my Visa-card number when verifying it,
got a "no authorization", and sent me a letter asking for a check or
money order if I still wanted the modem.  By then, I had heard the
following, and decided not to get it after all:

After ordering it, I mentioned having done so on a BBS I peruse
frequently.  Another BBS'er responded with a comment, saying that the
ADC modem looks very much as if it's a private-label packaging of a
modem made by a company here in California (I don't recall the company
name, save that it starts with "L";  Levco, maybe???).  He mentioned
that this modem, and a whole bunch of others had recently been reviewed
in one of the PC magazines;  it received a very high bang-for-the-buck
rating, but a fairly low absolute-level-of-quality rating.  Apparently
its ability to "hang onto" a low-quality signal is not very good
(poor noise filtration, a simplistic decoding algorithm, or some such).
It will apparently perform well when used to make local calls over
high-quality phone lines, but tends to fall apart when used to make
long-distance calls (especially, I'd guess, over some of the "alternate"
long-distance carriers whose bandwidth / noise / echo suppression is
not as good as AT&T & the better alternate carriers).  DAK's owner mentioned
in the ad that he noticed no difference between the ADC and the Hayes 1200
he'd been using... but if he was connecting mostly with database systems
in the LA area (or with the local CompuServe or Tymnet access numbers)
then his experience might not be a good indication of how it would
perform in a more difficult environment.

Please note - all of the above is third-hand news & rumor.  I'd suggest
that anyone seriously interested in the ADC modem dig through some back
issues of the popular PC magazines (PC World, perhaps??) and see if you
can find the article that compared the modems.  Also, you might just
go ahead and order the ADC modem from DAK, and see how it works in your
application;  DAK offers a 30-day no-questions-asked guarantee on
everything they sell, and my experience with their various guarantees has
been that they do keep their word.

For now, I'm going to stick with my venerable Racal-Vadic VS212P modem.
Its major shortcoming is that it's not Hayes-compatible (I understand
that their new 300/1200/2400 "Maxwell" modem supports both Hayes and
their own command sets).  It has been very reliable in the 2+ years that
I've owned it, and its noise immunity is very good;  I do occasional
cross-country XMODEM transfers with very few problems.

'nuff said.