Agreed, callsigns should be the real callsign. Even in AX.25 packet, the callsign was the callsign. An alias field was added to support tactical calls.
If you use MYEOC as a tactical call, then unless it is registered, it can't source route or link repeaters. And from an EOC, that's something that you might want to do. You also have to think that we John was alluding to, D-STAR is a much wider impact communications medium than a VHF/UHF Packet or voice system. You don't see much use of tactical callsigns on HF because it too has a wide impacting implication. And don't forget that many county names are used multiple times across the US, so collisions can definitely be a problem and one county registering their tactical call before another wouldn't be really fair. Maybe the more appropriate action would be to get callsigns for the EOCs. Many might already have a RACES call, but you can get additional callsigns for your organization to act as your tactical callsigns. Ed WA4YIH From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of k7ve Sent: Friday, May 15, 2009 2:49 PM To: [email protected] Subject: 880 vs 800 (was: Re: [DSTAR_DIGITAL] Signal Distance) I think in the "real world" you would find that quite often a "tactical callsign" is in use in multiple locations. (For example, during a hurricane in the Gulf coast, multiple EOC stations may be on D-STAR at the same time.) In the dynamic design, you really don't have a database of who's using what callsign (though such a design would probably have query tools) I see this design being very dynamic with routing lookups "on demand" with caching. So the local "gateway" sees your local special callsign and marks it as being on local repeater "X" and reports to the central data servers, that "EOC" is now on repeater "X" (based on the "MY EOC" field). The gateway also services another repeater "Y" and someone now calls "UR EOC" and it routes to repeater "X", good so far. Now another station on a remote gateway, servicing repeater "Z", has "MY EOC" set and keys her microphone. The remote gateway dutifully updates the central data servers that "EOC" is now on repeater "Z" and sends an advisory notice to your local gateway of this information. Your local gateway says, oh, "EOC" has moved, I'll update my hashtable, now the station at repeater "X" keys with "UR EOC" and the gateway dutifully routes it to remote repeater "Z" ... ooops! As I said before, the radio should ID its official callsign ... solving this problem. Certainly, my aforementioned alternatives would allow net or event participants to still use "tactical callsigns", an accepted practice in emergency communications. The use of "tactical callsigns" does not relieve a station of the responsibility of identifying his transmissions with his own callsign, so using the official station callsign in the MY field also frees the operator from having to remember to ID when in the heat of action during an event. As a repeater trustee, one would have the responsibility to follow rule (in the US) 97.113a4, if she is aware of such transmissions. I would say the filters should be available at the gateway so that a trustee can have some management of its use, but they should be optional. -- John, K7VE [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
