Ken Livingston wrote: > > > Well, for one thing: How would you go about controlling the connection? It > seems to me that whoever is connecting to the d-star network through > Echolink is limited to using whatever connection to d-star is already > provided, since Echolink has no way to switch d-star to another gateway, for > instance. I guess if the Echolink <-> D-star connection is configured > using "UR CQCQCQ" or similar, then it would work...
The *only* way analog to digital links are going to work properly is on Reflectors (on both sides). The "correct" way to do it would be completely in software, but... the CODEC for D-STAR is hideously expensive from DVSI to do that. So the "next best" is to loop the digital stream out through a DV-DONGLE and back in. The change that has to happen beyond that is that the Dongle or the Reflector software has to be able to trigger a hardware or software "PTT" and "COS" indication. Both of those are completely in the hands of Robin and crew, since both the Dongle and the Reflector are closed-source code. Robin is working on a "next generation" Reflector, with an unknown release date. Hopefully it has the ability to be hard-linked like this. Using "nodes" -- as you point out, is a technical problem -- because callsign routing control isn't available. Building some strange DTMF to callsign routing entry "scheme" is too far "out there" that most average folks won't even attempt to figure out how to use it. It's so far away from the KISS principal, it won't get any real traction with users. Nate WY0X
