> However, when I get no less than 15 emails and 3 phone calls in the
> past week complaining, I must act. I cannot imagine other cities
> doing what we have been doing are not getting similar complaints.
Reflector etiquette is still evolving. Fortunately folks on 1C are
getting in the habit of pausing five or more seconds before keying up
during a ragchew so others can get in, meet, etc. A bigger problem is
what to do when you turn your radio on to find the gateway linked with
an ongoing reflector chat but you want to make a local call. Or you
turn your radio on and don't know if the gateway is linked or not -
just because it's quiet at first doesn't mean you are unlinked.
Thus, for the past week and one-half we have enabled "open linking
control" on K5CTX and W5HAT (dplus.conf allowadminlinkingonly=0), and
we have encouraged folks to link and unlink as they wish rather than
leaving the gateways hard linked. So far we have not had any problems
other than folks being afraid to try. The new dplus feature where the
identifier function ("I" in callsign position 8) allows a user to
determine if the gateway is linked really helps when you turn your
radio on and don't know the link status because it's quiet. Of
course, if you find out you are linked, you are not told to what, but
that doesn't matter. We have told our users that when they turn their
radios on and hear no one else local on, they can do whatever they
want with the gateway - unlink it, link it, or leave it the way it is.
For more info:
http://www.kkn.net/pipermail/ctds/2008-June/000010.html
http://www.kkn.net/pipermail/ctds/2008-May/000006.html
http://www.kkn.net/pipermail/ctds/2008-May/000007.html
73 -- John
