Experimental work in underwater acoustic communications using passive phase conjugation has shown that the demodulation error depends on the relative drift rate between the source and receiver [Rouseff et al., IEEE J. Oceanic Eng. 26, 821-831 (2001)]. The observed effect involves the mismatch between the initial impulse response and the subsequent response after the source or receiver has changed locations. In the present work, the effect of drifting source is analyzed by numerical simulations and compared to the experimental results. The communications bit error rate is qualified as a function of drift rate, drifting direction, and source-receiver range.